FileVersionInfo does not document differences between Windows and other platforms

[johanseb-te]

Type of issue

Missing information

Description

On "Unix" platforms FileVersionInfo only looks at managed metadata, while on Windows it uses GetFileVersionInfoEx.

The documentation mentions that the "properties are based on version resource information built into the file", and that "Version resources are typically specified in a Win32 resource file, or in assembly attributes." - but it does not mention that the "Unix" platforms only work on managed executables and returns the values found in the managed metadata, unlike Windows which looks at the Win32 resource data.

(This was earlier brought up in an issue on the runtime repository which was incorrectly closed after an unrelated fix, but the difference should be documented.)

Page URL

https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/dotnet/api/system.diagnostics.fileversioninfo?view=net-8.0

Content source URL

https://github.com/dotnet/dotnet-api-docs/blob/main/xml/System.Diagnostics/FileVersionInfo.xml

Document Version Independent Id

3b2dd44b-4be0-8abc-ad1b-3a4f6f0f751b

Platform Id

f2cd9136-0015-7b60-80f6-00686ccaf1f3

Article author

@dotnet-bot

[johanseb-te]

GitHub Actions is a bit drunk, this probably belongs with "area-System.Diagnostics", not WinForms :)

[dotnet-policy-service]

Tagging subscribers to this area: @tommcdon