DWMCORE Versions

DWMCORE.DLL was introduced for Windows 7, apparently from a reduction of MILCORE.DLL from Windows Vista:

Builds

The following builds have been inspected for these notes. Most are from MSDN discs. Some, especially since Microsoft greatly reduced its shipment of operating systems on MSDN discs, are from service packs downloaded (typically as self-extracting executables) from a Microsoft website.

Builds are arranged in increasing order of the file version as recorded in the executable’s resources. This version number is readily visible using Windows Explorer either in a so-called infotip for the file or by accessing the Version tab in the Properties dialog for the file. Programmers know this version number as coming from the so-called root block of the version-information resource, specifically from the dwFileVersionMS and dwFileVersionLS members of a VS_FIXEDFILEINFO structure.

The date stamp shown for each version is more obscure. File dates are easily modified after the executable is built and are anyway liable to be shown differently when read from different time zones. However, there is in each executable’s header a date stamp which is set when the executable is built and which is not commonly changed afterwards. It is readily accessible to anyone with programming knowledge and appropriate tools, e.g., Microsoft’s own DUMPBIN utility.

64-Bit Windows

The executables for Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2 are identical.