Free resource editor for Windows .rc files?

Question

Microsoft Visual C++ Express does not include the built-in resource editor that comes with the professional versions. Are there any good, free, alternatives out there that let you visually edit those .rc files?

Note: I am talking about the resource script source files used by Visual C++ to compile the resources, not the compiled resources themselves (i.e. the program would need to be able to visually edit menus and dialogs in a similar way as MSVC++ does it).

Answer 1

Microsoft eVC++4 (googlable, currently at http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyId=1DACDB3D-50D1-41B2-A107-FA75AE960856) is free, and comes with a built in resource editor. You can certainly create .rc (etc) files for MSVC++6 and onward (e.g., MSVC++2005e,2008e) with it. Using it to edit existing MSVC++6 (etc) files is not always as easy, as eVC is intended for Windows CE, which doesn't define all of the styles VC++6 uses (e.g., SS_SUNKEN), but you can always manually add them to your resource.h file (the appropriate values are searchable by looking in the .h's that come with MSVC++, and once you've done it once it should "just work".

Edit: I have found that it is better to just remove incompatible VC++6 styles (e.g., using a text editor), as some of the absent styles cause the window containing them to fail to display.

Answer 2

ResEdit used to be available here: www.resedit.net

However, it seems to contain malware at this time. Please look for mirrors or scan it before use.

ResEdit is a free Resource Editor for Win32 programs. You can use it if you want to use dialogs, icon, version information or other types of resources. Output files can be compiled by any Win32 compiler, like MinGW and Microsoft Visual C++. To open a file which uses Win32 API symbolic constants, you will also need Win32 header files (usually coming with you compiler).

Answer 3

I use XN Resource Editor and am quite happy with it.

Answer 4

Resource Hacker is free, has a nice GUI and no adware and is fully functional and is light and tight at a download size of 2.7 MB. If you are looking to edit resource files or an .exe and just want a stock resource editor it works great.

http://www.angusj.com/resourcehacker/#download

I've tried 3 resource editors and this one was the smallest and fastest with the simplest interface, but may not have some of the advanced features of the other suggestions.