Resource Hacker FX: Download Free Patcher to Enhance and Improve “Resource Hacker” Tool

We here at AskVG love “Resource Hacker” software. Its one of the best customization tools for Windows. It allows you to edit system files like EXE, DLL, CPL, etc. You can change or customize resources present in system files like bitmaps, PNG image files, icons, etc. You can even modify appearance of windows like customizing various dialog boxes look, menus, etc. Almost all theme designers use Resource Hacker to add or replace resources in theme files.

We have posted a detailed tutorial about Resource Hacker which can be found at following link:

All About Resource Hacker in a Brief Tutorial, Ultimate Windows Customization Tool

The above tutorial is one of the most famous article of AskVG website. In fact its the first article posted at AskVG. This article has been featured at various websites including the official Resource Hacker website.

Now you might be wondering, why all of sudden we are telling all this to you? Don’t think too much. Actually we are sharing all this because of another freeware which we are going to share in this topic.

Although Resource Hacker is an excellent program, it lacks a few enhanced features. First issue is showing language tree for all resources. Whenever you open a file in Resource Hacker, it shows each resource in following tree structure:

As you can assume, if you want to see or modify an existing resource, you’ll need to navigate through 3 menus “Resource Type”, “Resource Name” and at last “Language Code”. If somehow we can remove “Language Code” menu, we’ll need to navigate though 2 menus only.

Second annoyance is the use of classic old browse dialog box. Resource Hacker uses classic Windows 98 style save/open dialog box which doesn’t allow you to resize the dialog box and doesn’t use new enhanced functionality of Windows Vista and 7 Explorer. Many people always complain about it.

Now there is a new patcher available which patches Resource Hacker EXE file to remove all these annoyances and add new functionality.

“Resource Hacker FX” is a patching utility available for Resource Hacker which patches Resource Hacker to fix following things:

• It removes Language Code menu from tree structure.
• It uses new enhanced browse dialog box.
• It improves save as functionality by auto-filling file name, etc.
• It adds a confirmation dialog box if you want to close the program without saving a modified file.
• It shows only first 10KB of the binary resource which prevents the tool from hanging.
• It also adds some effects to the program.

When you run this patcher, it asks you to select the main EXE file of Resource Hacker. Just browse and select the main EXE file and click on”FX it!” button as shown in following screenshot:

That’s it. Once it finishes patching the file, it automatically creates a new EXE file “ResHackerFX.exe” in Resource Hacker folder. You can use this file to run enhanced version of Resource Hacker tool.

Following is a screenshot of Resource Hacker program window after patching using this patcher:

As you can see there is no extra “Language Code” menu available which makes browsing and modifying resources faster.

You can download this patcher using following link:

Download Link

Thanks to our reader “NZero” for sharing it…

NOTE: After using this patch, if you want context menu option “Open using Resource Hacker” to point to new “Resource Hacker FX” instead of old “Resource Hacker” , you can run following registry fix created by our reader “TheAslan“:

Download Registry Fix

UPDATE: If you want to replace existing folder tree icon in Resource Hacker with 32-bit icon, you can follow these simple steps:

1. Open Resource Hacker’s EXE file in a hex editor and go to following addresses and replace default values with the new ones:

Address | Default | New
00027124 | 10 | 20
000272A8 | 00 | 08

2. Save the file and now you can replace “SMALLICONS” under Bitmap section with higher color. Keep in mind the background must remain the same color.

Thanks to our reader “ZD” for sharing this trick…