rc.exe from windows sdk missing

Question

While doing some cleaning and reinstalling on my machine, I obviously cleaned one too many, and now I'm missing a rc.exe that's supposed to go either in my Visual Studio directory (not sure which one) or in my Microsoft SDKs directory.

The problem is that I don't want to reinstall the whole OS again, and that rc.exe is part of some SDK freely downloadable from Microsoft (apparently 6.0a version). I can't find it nevertheless.

Anyone knows what rc.exe is part of, and what I need to download (and from where) to get it back ?

Answer 1

It's part of the Windows SDK - see here

The Microsoft Windows Resource Compiler (RC) is a tool used in building Windows-based applications. This overview describes how to create a resource-definition (script) file, how to compile your application's resources, and how to add compiled resources to your application.

This tool is available in Visual Studio and the Microsoft Windows Software Development Kit (SDK).

You don't say which version of Windows you are using. The Windows 7 SDK is no longer available from here as of 2017, but other versions are available:

• Win 8.1 SDK
• this one for Windows® Server 2003 SP1 indicates that it's compatible with XP:

This edition of the SDK replaces the previous SDKs for Windows XP SP2 and Windows Server 2003 and can be used to develop applications for those platforms.