loading a program from memory into memory

[thpsthc]

Is there a way to have an executable(a) stored as a resource in another executable(b) and have executable(b) load executable(a) into memory and run it without actually writing it to disk first?

[ZeeM]

nope ;)

why not write it to disk first?

[thpsthc]

because I want everything to be in one file, the one executable

[SuperKoko]

You can include the executable in your resources like that in the .rc file.

#define EXERES_Notepad 100
EXERES_Notepad EXECUTABLE "c:\windows\notepad.exe"

And get the HRSRC like that

#define EXERES_Notepad 100
// ...
HRSRC hRes=FindResource(hInstance,MAKEINTRESOURCE(EXERES_Notepad),TEXT("EXECUTABLE"));

And now, there are two possibilities:
1)
Create a named pipe, with CreateNamedPipe (http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/default.asp?url=/library/en-us/ipc/base/createnamedpipe.asp), and after that, call CreateProcess with a filename like "\\.\pipe\MyPipe". I suggest that you append a LUID (generated with AllocateLocallyUniqueId), to the name of the pipe, to be sure that this name will be unique.

The problem with this method, is that it requires Windows NT/2000/XP.
I have not tested it, because i have only Windows 98.

2)
Create a temporary file (use GetTempFileName to get a temporary file name), write the resource in it, and call CreateProcess on it.

[thpsthc]

cool thanks, I'm going to try that out