Windows application manifests provide several benefits—such as enhanced security settings, and the ability to set a process-wide code page (required for #32380), as well as granular control over supported Windows versions. Most of these benefits lie beyond the scope of this PR and will be evaluated separately.
On the current master branch @ fc6346dbc8dc3db40aad4079210332b5f8b332ed, the linker generates and embeds a manifest only when building with MSVC:
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8" standalone="yes"?>
<assembly xmlns="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:asm.v1" manifestVersion="1.0">
<trustInfo xmlns="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:asm.v3">
<security>
<requestedPrivileges>
<requestedExecutionLevel level="asInvoker" uiAccess="false"></requestedExecutionLevel>
</requestedPrivileges>
</security>
</trustInfo>
</assembly>
However, this manifest fails validation:
> mt.exe -nologo -inputresource:build\bin\Release\bitcoind.exe -validate_manifest
mt.exe : general error 10100ba: The manifest is missing the definition identity.
This PR unifies manifest embedding for both native and cross-compilation builds.
Here is the change in the manifest on Windows:
--- bitcoind-master.manifest
+++ bitcoind-pr.manifest
@@ -1,5 +1,6 @@
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8" standalone="yes"?>
<assembly xmlns="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:asm.v1" manifestVersion="1.0">
+ <assemblyIdentity type="win32" name="org.bitcoincore.bitcoind" version="29.99.0.0"></assemblyIdentity>
<trustInfo xmlns="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:asm.v3">
<security>
<requestedPrivileges>
which effectively resolves the "missing the definition identity" error.
Finally, “Get bitcoind manifest” steps have been added to the Windows CI jobs to ensure the manifest is embedded and validated.
