Change payload or file after packing?

[miked]

I have a 64 bit app which plays back a movie using a HTML player.
The files structure looks like this:



Questions:

1. Is there any way that I can change out the payload AFTER I've boxed the app? In other words, I want to box the app, and then change the video.m4v file to a different file?

2. if that is not possible, could I simply append the payload data to the end of the boxed EXE, and then read that data back from within my application?

[miked]

Regarding #2, I just did a test and it seems that if you ask for the EXE file inside your app that's been protected, you will actually be given a file handle to the container EXE (e.g. the boxed / protected virtual app, not the original EXE file):

Notice how the original EXE is about 2MB in size, but inside the packed app, when getting info about the EXE file, it's nearly 46MB in size. In other words, from within the packed app, the "executable" file is actually the packed app, not the original.

This may be handy!

[miked]

I've now run a test where I:
* build my multi-file x64 app
* protect it using Vitual Box or Protector
* take the single-file-exe and add a payload to the end (by simply appending it)
* inside the EXE, my app asks for the "executable file" which is the real EXE (not the original virtual one)
* my app can then parse the data at the end of the EXE and perform normally.

So far so good!

Next to do:
* how does this interact with code-signing?