manifest file

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 . 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 segment of the syntax). 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. 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 . 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. 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. 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 . Optional. processorArchitecture Specifies the processor. Valid values include x86 , amd64 , arm and arm64 . You can also specify , which ensures that all platforms are targeted. 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. 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. 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 maxi