Get Version Info for .exe

Question

Does anybody know how got get the version info for a executable/file via Java. The scenario is that I have a file on my local system and if the version on the server is newer then the one on my system I need to download the file from the server.

Answer 1

After spending hours online and coding I found a solution using JNA to get the Version Information for a file.

import com.sun.jna.Library;
import com.sun.jna.Memory;
import com.sun.jna.Native;
import com.sun.jna.Pointer;
import com.sun.jna.ptr.IntByReference;
import com.sun.jna.ptr.PointerByReference;
import com.sun.jna.win32.W32APIOptions;
import java.io.IOException;


public class FileVersionInfo
{
    interface Version extends Library {

        Version INSTANCE = (Version) Native.loadLibrary("Version", Version.class, W32APIOptions.UNICODE_OPTIONS);

        public int GetFileVersionInfoSizeW(String lptstrFilename, int dwDummy);

        public boolean GetFileVersionInfoW(String lptstrFilename, int dwHandle,
            int dwLen, Pointer lpData);

        public int VerQueryValueW(Pointer pBlock, String lpSubBlock,
            PointerByReference lplpBuffer, IntByReference puLen);

    }

    static class VS_FIXEDFILEINFO extends com.sun.jna.Structure {
        public int dwSignature;
        public int dwStrucVersion;
        public int dwFileVersionMS;
        public int dwFileVersionLS;
        public int dwProductVersionMS;
        public int dwProductVersionLS;
        public int dwFileFlagsMask;
        public int dwFileFlags;
        public int dwFileOS;
        public int dwFileType;
        public int dwFileSubtype;
        public int dwFileDateMS;
        public int dwFileDateLS;

           public VS_FIXEDFILEINFO(com.sun.jna.Pointer p){
                super(p);
           }
    }
    public static void main(String[] args) throws IOException {

        int dwDummy = 0;
        int versionlength = Version.INSTANCE.GetFileVersionInfoSizeW(
                "C:\\Test\\chromeinstall.exe", dwDummy);

        byte[] bufferarray = new byte[versionlength];
        Pointer lpData = new Memory(bufferarray.length);    

        PointerByReference lplpBuffer = new PointerByReference();
        IntByReference puLen = new IntByReference();
        boolean FileInfoResult = Version.INSTANCE.GetFileVersionInfoW(
                "C:\\Test\\chromeinstall.exe",
                0, versionlength, lpData);
        System.out.println(FileInfoResult);
        int verQueryVal = Version.INSTANCE.VerQueryValueW(lpData,
                "\\", lplpBuffer,
                puLen);

        VS_FIXEDFILEINFO lplpBufStructure = new VS_FIXEDFILEINFO(
                lplpBuffer.getValue());
        lplpBufStructure.read();

        short[] rtnData = new short[4];
        rtnData[0] = (short) (lplpBufStructure.dwFileVersionMS >> 16);
        rtnData[1] = (short) (lplpBufStructure.dwFileVersionMS & 0xffff);
        rtnData[2] = (short) (lplpBufStructure.dwFileVersionLS >> 16);
        rtnData[3] = (short) (lplpBufStructure.dwFileVersionLS & 0xffff);

        for (int i = 0; i < rtnData.length; i++) {
            System.out.println(rtnData[i]);
        }

} 

Answer 2

If you mean the information you get in Property->Details on Windows, bear in mind that it's platform dependent! That being said SIGAR has Java bindings and a FileVersionInfo class that seems close to what you need.

Answer 3

There is a portable solution explained here (and this question is more or less a duplicate).

Basically, windows executable use the PE format (and linux ones ELF) and you can use the pecoff4j library to read this information in a portable way.

Answer 4

I modified Antonis Zafiropoulos's answer and made a handy class you can just drop into your project. Note that the fileInfoResult and verQueryVal lines must exist even though they don't appear to do anything.

package yourpackage;

import com.sun.jna.Memory;
import com.sun.jna.Pointer;
import com.sun.jna.platform.win32.VerRsrc.VS_FIXEDFILEINFO;
import com.sun.jna.ptr.IntByReference;
import com.sun.jna.ptr.PointerByReference;

public class EXEFileInfo {
    public static int MAJOR = 0;
    public static int MINOR = 1;
    public static int BUILD = 2;
    public static int REVISION = 3;

    public static int getMajorVersionOfProgram(String path) {
        return getVersionInfo(path)[MAJOR];
    }

    public static int getMinorVersionOfProgram(String path) {
        return getVersionInfo(path)[MINOR];
    }

    public static int getBuildOfProgram(String path) {
        return getVersionInfo(path)[BUILD];
    }

    public static int getRevisionOfProgram(String path) {
        return getVersionInfo(path)[REVISION];
    }

    public static int[] getVersionInfo(String path) {
        IntByReference dwDummy = new IntByReference();
        dwDummy.setValue(0);

        int versionlength = com.sun.jna.platform.win32.Version.INSTANCE.GetFileVersionInfoSize(path, dwDummy);

        byte[] bufferarray = new byte[versionlength];
        Pointer lpData = new Memory(bufferarray.length);
        PointerByReference lplpBuffer = new PointerByReference();
        IntByReference puLen = new IntByReference();
        boolean fileInfoResult = com.sun.jna.platform.win32.Version.INSTANCE.GetFileVersionInfo(path, 0, versionlength, lpData);
        boolean verQueryVal = com.sun.jna.platform.win32.Version.INSTANCE.VerQueryValue(lpData, "\\", lplpBuffer, puLen);

        VS_FIXEDFILEINFO lplpBufStructure = new VS_FIXEDFILEINFO(lplpBuffer.getValue());
        lplpBufStructure.read();

        int v1 = (lplpBufStructure.dwFileVersionMS).intValue() >> 16;
        int v2 = (lplpBufStructure.dwFileVersionMS).intValue() & 0xffff;
        int v3 = (lplpBufStructure.dwFileVersionLS).intValue() >> 16;
        int v4 = (lplpBufStructure.dwFileVersionLS).intValue() & 0xffff;
        System.out.println("Version: " + v1 + "." + v2 + "." + v3 + "." + v4);
        return new int[] { v1, v2, v3, v4 };
    }
}

Answer 5

For reference, a modified version of the code by GEverding, with JNA 4, using com.sun.jna.platform.win32

package examples;

import java.io.IOException;

import com.sun.jna.Memory;
import com.sun.jna.Pointer;
import com.sun.jna.platform.win32.VerRsrc.VS_FIXEDFILEINFO;
import com.sun.jna.ptr.IntByReference;
import com.sun.jna.ptr.PointerByReference;

public class FileVersion {

    public static void main(String[] args) throws IOException {

        String filePath = "C:\\Test\\chromeinstall.exe";

        IntByReference dwDummy = new IntByReference();
        dwDummy.setValue(0);

        int versionlength =
                com.sun.jna.platform.win32.Version.INSTANCE.GetFileVersionInfoSize(
                        filePath, dwDummy);

        byte[] bufferarray = new byte[versionlength];
        Pointer lpData = new Memory(bufferarray.length);
        PointerByReference lplpBuffer = new PointerByReference();
        IntByReference puLen = new IntByReference();

        boolean fileInfoResult =
                com.sun.jna.platform.win32.Version.INSTANCE.GetFileVersionInfo(
                        filePath, 0, versionlength, lpData);

        boolean verQueryVal =
                com.sun.jna.platform.win32.Version.INSTANCE.VerQueryValue(
                        lpData, "\\", lplpBuffer, puLen);

        VS_FIXEDFILEINFO lplpBufStructure = new VS_FIXEDFILEINFO(lplpBuffer.getValue());
        lplpBufStructure.read();

        int v1 = (lplpBufStructure.dwFileVersionMS).intValue() >> 16;
        int v2 = (lplpBufStructure.dwFileVersionMS).intValue() & 0xffff;
        int v3 = (lplpBufStructure.dwFileVersionLS).intValue() >> 16;
        int v4 = (lplpBufStructure.dwFileVersionLS).intValue() & 0xffff;

        System.out.println(
                String.valueOf(v1) + "." +
                        String.valueOf(v2) + "." +
                        String.valueOf(v3) + "." +
                        String.valueOf(v4));
    }
}

Answer 6

Due to portability issues I believe this kind of information is not actually available in java unless you access it using a less portable approach.

For example you could write a wrapper using JNI and C++ and use the GetFileVersionInfo API (see also this JavaWorld tip) of Windows to get that kind of information from the exe. Another approach would be to use a totally external application that outputs the version of the file and use the Runtime class to create a process and interact with that application.

Other approaches would require having access to the server and providing version checking from server side:

• files contain the version number in their name,
• save a separate file accessible to java that can provide the current version
• save the date of the download on server side and checking if the current version is newer than the date when the last one was downloaded
• check the md5 to see if the version is different, in case the server can contain only versions newer or equally as new as the client one