Application manifests

Artykuł
10/07/2022
Czas czytania: 14 min

An application manifest (also known as a side-by-side application manifest, or a fusion manifest) is an XML file that describes and identifies the shared and private side-by-side assemblies that an application should bind to at run time. These should be the same assembly versions that were used to test the application. Application manifests might also describe metadata for files that are private to the application.

For a complete listing of the XML schema, see Manifest file schema.

Application manifests have the following elements and attributes.

Element	Attributes	Required
assembly		Yes
	manifestVersion	Yes
noInherit		No
assemblyIdentity		Yes
	type	Yes
	name	Yes
	language	No
	processorArchitecture	No
	version	Yes
	publicKeyToken	No
compatibility		No
application		No
supportedOS	Id	No
maxversiontested	Id	No
dependency		No
dependentAssembly		No
file		No
	name	No
	hashalg	No
	hash	No
activeCodePage		No
autoElevate		No
disableTheming		No
disableWindowFiltering		No
dpiAware		No
dpiAwareness		No
gdiScaling		No
highResolutionScrollingAware		No
longPathAware		No
printerDriverIsolation		No
ultraHighResolutionScrollingAware		No
msix		No
heapType		No

File location

If possible, you should embed the application manifest as a resource in your application's .exe file or .dll. If you can't do that, then you can place the application manifest file in the same directory as the .exe or .dll.

For more info, see Installing side-by-side assemblies.

File name

By convention an application manifest should have the same name as your app's executable file, with the .manifest extension appended to it.

For example, an application manifest that refers to example.exe or example.dll should use the following file name syntax (if resource ID is 1, then you can omit the <resource ID> segment of the syntax).

example.exe.<resource ID>.manifest

example.dll.<resource ID>.manifest

Elements

Names of elements and attributes are case-sensitive. The values of elements and attributes are case-insensitive, except for the value of the type attribute.

assembly

A container element. Its first subelement must be a noInherit or assemblyIdentity element. Required.

The assembly element must be in the namespace urn:schemas-microsoft-com:asm.v1. Child elements of the assembly must also be in this namespace, by inheritance or by tagging.

The assembly element has the following attributes.

Attribute	Description
manifestVersion	The manifestVersion attribute must be set to 1.0.

noInherit

Include this element in an application manifest to set the activation contexts generated from the manifest with the "no inherit" flag. When this flag is not set in an activation context, and the activation context is active, it is inherited by new threads in the same process, windows, window procedures, and Asynchronous Procedure Calls. Setting this flag prevents the new object from inheriting the active context.

The noInherit element is optional and typically omitted. Most assemblies do not work correctly using a no-inherit activation context because the assembly must be explicitly designed to manage the propagation of their own activation context. The use of the noInherit element requires that any dependent assemblies referenced by the application manifest have a noInherit element in their assembly manifest.

If noInherit is used in a manifest, it must be the first subelement of the assembly element. The assemblyIdentity element should come immediately after the noInherit element. If noInherit is not used, assemblyIdentity must be the first subelement of the assembly element. The noInherit element has no child elements. It is not a valid element in assembly manifests.

assemblyIdentity

As the first subelement of an assembly element, assemblyIdentity describes and uniquely identifies the application owning this application manifest. As the first subelement of a dependentAssembly element, assemblyIdentity describes a side-by-side assembly required by the application. Note that every assembly referenced in the application manifest requires an assemblyIdentity that exactly matches the assemblyIdentity in the referenced assembly's own assembly manifest.

The assemblyIdentity element has the following attributes. It has no subelements.

Attribute	Description
type	Specifies the application or assembly type. The value must be Win32 and all in lower case. Required.
name	Uniquely names the application or assembly. Use the following format for the name: Organization.Division.Name. For example Microsoft.Windows.mysampleApp. Required.
language	Identifies the language of the application or assembly. Optional. If the application or assembly is language-specific, specify the DHTML language code. In the assemblyIdentity of an application intended for worldwide use (language neutral) omit the language attribute. In an assemblyIdentity of an assembly intended for worldwide use (language neutral) set the value of language to "*".
processorArchitecture	Specifies the processor. Valid values include `x86`, `amd64`, `arm` and `arm64`. Optional.
version	Specifies the application or assembly version. Use the four-part version format: mmmmm.nnnnn.ooooo.ppppp. Each of the parts separated by periods can be 0-65535 inclusive. For more information, see Assembly Versions. Required.
publicKeyToken	A 16-character hexadecimal string representing the last 8 bytes of the SHA-1 hash of the public key under which the application or assembly is signed. The public key used to sign the catalog must be 2048 bits or greater. Required for all shared side-by-side assemblies.

compatibility

Contains at least one application. It has no attributes. Optional. Application manifests without a compatibility element default to Windows Vista compatibility on Windows 7.

application

Contains at least one supportedOS element. Starting in Windows 10, version 1903, it can also contain one optional maxversiontested element. It has no attributes. Optional.

supportedOS

The supportedOS element has the following attribute. It has no subelements.

Attribute	Description
Id	Set the Id attribute to {e2011457-1546-43c5-a5fe-008deee3d3f0} to run the application using Vista functionality. This can enable an application designed for Windows Vista to run on a later operating system. Set the Id attribute to {35138b9a-5d96-4fbd-8e2d-a2440225f93a} to run the application using Windows 7 functionality. Applications that support Windows Vista, Windows 7, and Windows 8 functionality do not require separate manifests. In this case, add the GUIDs for all the Windows operating systems. For info about the Id attribute behavior in Windows, see the Windows 8 and Windows Server 2012 Compatibility Cookbook. The following GUIDs correspond with the indicated operating systems: {8e0f7a12-bfb3-4fe8-b9a5-48fd50a15a9a} -> Windows 10, Windows 11, Windows Server 2016, Windows Server 2019 and Windows Server 2022 {1f676c76-80e1-4239-95bb-83d0f6d0da78} -> Windows 8.1 and Windows Server 2012 R2 {4a2f28e3-53b9-4441-ba9c-d69d4a4a6e38} -> Windows 8 and Windows Server 2012 {35138b9a-5d96-4fbd-8e2d-a2440225f93a} -> Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2 {e2011457-1546-43c5-a5fe-008deee3d3f0} -> Windows Vista and Windows Server 2008 You can test this on Windows 7 or Windows 8.x by running Resource Monitor (resmon), going to the CPU tab, right-clicking on the column labels, "Select Column...", and check "Operating System Context". On Windows 8.x, you can also find this column available in the Task Manager (taskmgr). The content of the column shows the highest value found or "Windows Vista" as the default.

Attribute

Description

Set the Id attribute to {e2011457-1546-43c5-a5fe-008deee3d3f0} to run the application using Vista functionality. This can enable an application designed for Windows Vista to run on a later operating system.
Set the Id attribute to {35138b9a-5d96-4fbd-8e2d-a2440225f93a} to run the application using Windows 7 functionality.
Applications that support Windows Vista, Windows 7, and Windows 8 functionality do not require separate manifests. In this case, add the GUIDs for all the Windows operating systems.
For info about the Id attribute behavior in Windows, see the Windows 8 and Windows Server 2012 Compatibility Cookbook.
The following GUIDs correspond with the indicated operating systems:
{8e0f7a12-bfb3-4fe8-b9a5-48fd50a15a9a} -> Windows 10, Windows 11, Windows Server 2016, Windows Server 2019 and Windows Server 2022
{1f676c76-80e1-4239-95bb-83d0f6d0da78} -> Windows 8.1 and Windows Server 2012 R2
{4a2f28e3-53b9-4441-ba9c-d69d4a4a6e38} -> Windows 8 and Windows Server 2012
{35138b9a-5d96-4fbd-8e2d-a2440225f93a} -> Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2
{e2011457-1546-43c5-a5fe-008deee3d3f0} -> Windows Vista and Windows Server 2008
You can test this on Windows 7 or Windows 8.x by running Resource Monitor (resmon), going to the CPU tab, right-clicking on the column labels, "Select Column...", and check "Operating System Context". On Windows 8.x, you can also find this column available in the Task Manager (taskmgr). The content of the column shows the highest value found or "Windows Vista" as the default.

maxversiontested

The maxversiontested element specifies the versions of Windows that the application was tested against starting with the minimum OS version the application supports up to the maximum version. The complete set of versions can be found here. This is intended to be used by desktop applications that use XAML Islands and that are not deployed in an MSIX package. This element is supported in Windows 10, version 1903, and later versions.

The maxversiontested element has the following attribute. It has no subelements.

Attribute	Description
Id	Set the Id attribute to a 4-part version string that specifies the maximum version of Windows that the application was tested against. For example, "10.0.18226.0".

dependency

Contains at least one dependentAssembly. It has no attributes. Optional.

dependentAssembly

The first subelement of dependentAssembly must be an assemblyIdentity element that describes a side-by-side assembly required by the application. Every dependentAssembly must be inside exactly one dependency. It has no attributes.

file

Specifies files that are private to the application. Optional.

The file element has the attributes shown in the following table.

Attribute	Description
name	Name of the file. For example, Comctl32.dll.
hashalg	Algorithm used to create a hash of the file. This value should be SHA1.
hash	A hash of the file referred to by name. A hexadecimal string of length depending on the hash algorithm.

activeCodePage

On Windows 10, this element forces a process to use UTF-8 as the process code page. For more information, see Use the UTF-8 code page. On Windows 10, the only valid value for activeCodePage is UTF-8.

Starting in Windows 11, this element also allows selection of either the legacy non-UTF-8 code page, or code pages for a specific locale for legacy application compatibility. Modern applications are strongly encouraged to use Unicode. On Windows 11, activeCodePage may also be set to the value Legacy or a locale name such as en-US or ja-JP.

On machines configured to a UTF-8 system active code page, Legacy will revert the process to the system locale code pages. If the system locale does not have defined code pages, then Windows-1252/437 will be used. The Legacy codepage setting is only supported in Fusion manifests and only beginning with Windows 11.
When a locale name such as en-US is supplied, then the process code page will be set appropriately for that locale code page. For example, Windows-1252 and 437 for en-US, or 932 for ja-JP.

This element was first added in Windows 10 version 1903 (May 2019 Update). You can declare this property and target/run on earlier Windows builds, but you must handle legacy code page detection and conversion as usual. This element has no attributes.

The following example demonstrates how to use this element to force the current process to use UTF-8 as the process code page.

<assembly xmlns="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:asm.v1" manifestVersion="1.0" xmlns:asmv3="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:asm.v3">
 ...
  <asmv3:application>
    <asmv3:windowsSettings xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/SMI/2019/WindowsSettings"> 
      <activeCodePage>UTF-8</activeCodePage> 
    </asmv3:windowsSettings>
  </asmv3:application>
 ...
</assembly>

autoElevate

Specifies whether auto elevate is enabled. TRUE indicates that it is enabled. It has no attributes. The executable file must be digitally signed by Windows Publisher. For internal use.

disableTheming

Specifies whether giving UI elements a theme is disabled. TRUE indicates disabled. It has no attributes.

disableWindowFiltering

Specifies whether to disable window filtering. TRUE disables window filtering so you can enumerate immersive windows from the desktop. disableWindowFiltering was added in Windows 8 and has no attributes.

<assembly xmlns="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:asm.v1" manifestVersion="1.0" xmlns:asmv3="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:asm.v3">
 ...
  <asmv3:application>
    <asmv3:windowsSettings xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/SMI/2011/WindowsSettings">
      <disableWindowFiltering>true</disableWindowFiltering>
    </asmv3:windowsSettings>
  </asmv3:application>
 ...
</assembly>

dpiAware

Specifies whether the current process is dots per inch (dpi) aware.

Windows 10, version 1607: The dpiAware element is ignored if the dpiAwareness element is present. You can include both elements in a manifest if you want to specify a different behavior for Windows 10, version 1607 than for an earlier version of the operating system.

The following table describes the behavior that results based upon the presence of the dpiAware element and the text that it contains. The text within the element is not case-sensitive.

State of the dpiAware element	Description
Absent	The current process is dpi unaware by default. You can programmatically change this setting by calling the SetProcessDpiAwareness or SetProcessDPIAware function.
Contains "true"	The current process is system dpi aware.
Contains "false"	Windows Vista, Windows 7 and Windows 8: The behavior is the same as when the dpiAware is absent. Windows 8.1 and Windows 10: The current process is dpi unaware, and you cannot programmatically change this setting by calling the SetProcessDpiAwareness or SetProcessDPIAware function.
Contains "true/pm"	Windows Vista, Windows 7 and Windows 8: The current process is system dpi aware. Windows 8.1 and Windows 10: The current process is per-monitor dpi aware.
Contains "per monitor"	Windows Vista, Windows 7 and Windows 8: The behavior is the same as when the dpiAware is absent. Windows 8.1 and Windows 10: The current process is per-monitor dpi aware.
Contains any other string	Windows Vista, Windows 7 and Windows 8: The behavior is the same as when the dpiAware is absent. Windows 8.1 and Windows 10: The current process is dpi unaware, and you cannot programmatically change this setting by calling the SetProcessDpiAwareness or SetProcessDPIAware function.

For more information about dpi awareness settings, see Comparison of DPI Awareness Levels.

dpiAware has no attributes.

<assembly xmlns="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:asm.v1" manifestVersion="1.0" xmlns:asmv3="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:asm.v3">
 ...
  <asmv3:application>
    <asmv3:windowsSettings xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/SMI/2005/WindowsSettings">
      <dpiAware>true</dpiAware>
    </asmv3:windowsSettings>
  </asmv3:application>
 ...
</assembly>

dpiAwareness

Specifies whether the current process is dots per inch (dpi) aware.

The minimum version of the operating system that supports the dpiAwareness element is Windows 10, version 1607. For versions that support the dpiAwareness element, the dpiAwareness overrides the dpiAware element. You can include both elements in a manifest if you want to specify a different behavior for Windows 10, version 1607 than for an earlier version of the operating system.

The dpiAwareness element can contain a single item or a list of comma-separated items. In the latter case, the first (leftmost) item in the list recognized by the operating system is used. In this way, you can specify different behaviors supported in future Windows operating system versions.

The following table describes the behavior that results based upon the presence of the dpiAwareness element and the text that it contains in its leftmost recognized item. The text within the element is not case-sensitive.

dpiAwareness element status:	Description
Element is absent	The dpiAware element specifies whether the process is dpi aware.
Contains no recognized items	The current process is dpi unaware by default. You can programmatically change this setting by calling the SetProcessDpiAwareness or SetProcessDPIAware function.
First recognized item is "system"	The current process is system dpi aware.
First recognized item is "permonitor"	The current process is per-monitor dpi aware.
First recognized item is "permonitorv2"	The current process uses the per-monitor-v2 dpi awareness context. This item will only be recognized on Windows 10 version 1703 or later.
First recognized item is "unaware"	The current process is dpi unaware. Youcannot programmatically change this setting by calling the SetProcessDpiAwareness or SetProcessDPIAware function.

For more information about dpi awareness settings supported by this element, see DPI_AWARENESS and DPI_AWARENESS_CONTEXT.

dpiAwareness has no attributes.

<assembly xmlns="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:asm.v1" manifestVersion="1.0" xmlns:asmv3="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:asm.v3">
 ...
  <asmv3:application>
    <asmv3:windowsSettings xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/SMI/2016/WindowsSettings">
      <dpiAwareness>PerMonitorV2, unaware</dpiAwareness>
    </asmv3:windowsSettings>
  </asmv3:application>
 ...
</assembly>

gdiScaling

Specifies whether GDI scaling is enabled. The minimum version of the operating system that supports the gdiScaling element is Windows 10 version 1703.

The GDI (graphics device interface) framework can apply DPI scaling to primitives and text on a per-monitor basis without updates to the application itself. This can be useful for GDI applications no longer being actively updated.

Non-vector graphics (such as bitmaps, icons, or toolbars) cannot be scaled by this element. In addition, graphics and text appearing within bitmaps dynamically constructed by applications also cannot be scaled by this element.

TRUE indicates that this element is enabled. It has no attributes.

<assembly xmlns="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:asm.v1" manifestVersion="1.0" xmlns:asmv3="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:asm.v3">
 ...
  <asmv3:application>
    <asmv3:windowsSettings xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/SMI/2017/WindowsSettings">
      <gdiScaling>true</gdiScaling>
    </asmv3:windowsSettings>
  </asmv3:application>
 ...
</assembly>

highResolutionScrollingAware

Specifies whether high-resolution-scrolling aware is enabled. TRUE indicates that it is enabled. It has no attributes.

longPathAware

Enables long paths that exceed MAX_PATH in length. This element is supported in Windows 10, version 1607, and later. For more information, see this article.

<assembly xmlns="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:asm.v1" manifestVersion="1.0" xmlns:asmv3="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:asm.v3">
 ...
  <asmv3:application>
    <asmv3:windowsSettings xmlns:ws2="http://schemas.microsoft.com/SMI/2016/WindowsSettings">
      <ws2:longPathAware>true</ws2:longPathAware>
    </asmv3:windowsSettings>
  </asmv3:application>
 ...
</assembly>

printerDriverIsolation

Specifies whether printer driver isolation is enabled. TRUE indicates that it is enabled. It has no attributes. Printer driver isolation improves the reliability of the Windows print service by enabling printer drivers to run in processes that are separate from the process in which the print spooler runs. Support for printer driver isolation started in Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2. An app can declare printer driver isolation in its app manifest to isolate itself from the printer driver and improve its reliability. That is, the app won't crash if the printer driver has an error.

<assembly xmlns="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:asm.v1" manifestVersion="1.0" xmlns:asmv3="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:asm.v3">
 ...
  <asmv3:application>
    <asmv3:windowsSettings xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/SMI/2011/WindowsSettings">
      <printerDriverIsolation>true</printerDriverIsolation>
    </asmv3:windowsSettings>
  </asmv3:application>
 ...
</assembly>

ultraHighResolutionScrollingAware

Specifies whether ultra-high-resolution-scrolling aware is enabled. TRUE indicates that it is enabled. It has no attributes.

msix

Specifies the identity info of a package with external location for the current application (see Grant package identity by packaging with external location). This element is supported in Windows 10, version 2004, and later versions.

The msix element must be in the namespace urn:schemas-microsoft-com:msix.v1. It has the attributes shown in the following table.

Attribute	Description
publisher	Describes the publisher information. This value must match the Publisher attribute in the Identity element in the package manifest of your packaged app with external location.
packageName	Describes the contents of the package. This value must match the Name attribute in the Identity element in the package manifest of your packaged app with external location.
applicationId	The unique identifier of the application. This value must match the Id attribute in the Application element in the package manifest of your packaged app with external location.

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<assembly manifestVersion="1.0" xmlns="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:asm.v1">
  <assemblyIdentity version="1.0.0.0" name="Contoso.PhotoStoreApp"/>
  <msix xmlns="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:msix.v1"
          publisher="CN=Contoso"
          packageName="ContosoPhotoStore"
          applicationId="ContosoPhotoStore"
        />
</assembly>

heapType

Overrides the default heap implementation for the Win32 heap APIs to use.

The value SegmentHeap indicates that segment heap will be used. Segment heap is a modern heap implementation that will generally reduce your overall memory usage. This element is supported in Windows 10, version 2004 (build 19041) and later.
All other values are ignored.

This element has no attributes.

<assembly xmlns="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:asm.v1" manifestVersion="1.0" xmlns:asmv3="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:asm.v3">
 ...
  <asmv3:application>
    <asmv3:windowsSettings xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/SMI/2020/WindowsSettings">
      <heapType>SegmentHeap</heapType>
    </asmv3:windowsSettings>
  </asmv3:application>
 ...
</assembly>

Example

The following is an example of an application manifest for an application named MySampleApp.exe. The application consumes the SampleAssembly side-by-side assembly.

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8" standalone="yes"?>
<assembly xmlns="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:asm.v1" manifestVersion="1.0">

  <compatibility xmlns="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:compatibility.v1"> 
      <application> 
        <!--This Id value indicates the application supports Windows Vista functionality -->
          <supportedOS Id="{e2011457-1546-43c5-a5fe-008deee3d3f0}"/> 
        <!--This Id value indicates the application supports Windows 7 functionality-->
          <supportedOS Id="{35138b9a-5d96-4fbd-8e2d-a2440225f93a}"/>
        <!--This Id value indicates the application supports Windows 8 functionality-->
          <supportedOS Id="{4a2f28e3-53b9-4441-ba9c-d69d4a4a6e38}"/>
        <!--This Id value indicates the application supports Windows 8.1 functionality-->
          <supportedOS Id="{1f676c76-80e1-4239-95bb-83d0f6d0da78}"/>
      </application> 
  </compatibility>

  <assemblyIdentity type="win32" 
                    name="myOrganization.myDivision.mySampleApp" 
                    version="6.0.0.0" 
                    processorArchitecture="x86" 
                    publicKeyToken="0000000000000000"
  />
  <dependency>
    <dependentAssembly>
      <assemblyIdentity type="win32" 
                        name="Proseware.Research.SampleAssembly" 
                        version="6.0.0.0" 
                        processorArchitecture="X86" 
                        publicKeyToken="0000000000000000" 
                        language="*"
      />
    </dependentAssembly>
  </dependency>
</assembly>