Thanks for the info Sarge. This is exactly what I suspected the problem was. I am still amazed that this issue isn't readily discussed among VB developers (mind you, i'm only new to VB so maybe noone discusses it but everyone knows it).

Does anyone have any ideas on a simple way to identify what portions of the PE file are junk (ie. their values don't matter)? I've found a utility that gives me an excellent summary (it clearly shows the different segments) - but it doesn't help me determine what "can" be different and what "can't" be different for a VB executable.

Here's where i'm up to.

1. Run pedump (the updated '98 version) and generate output1.txt and output2.txt

2. Use WinMerge (found on sourceforce) and generate a diff between the two files.

By doing this, I can isolate the code into different sections in an easy to see format. However, this only partially helps because all of the segments are different between the two executables and I am not sure of an easy way to discriminate between critical code and non-critical "data memory" (which I suspect is the culprit).

I unfortunately need to have a repeatable method for determining the difference. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks again


Well Being