Winform app name shown as _alphanumeric on Startup tab in Task Manager in windows 10

Question

On Windows 10, my Form application is showing as alphanumeric characters (_1F036AE84FF792FB79A74F) on Startup tab in Task Manager. It is a

Answer 1

There doesn't seem to be a way to fix this with Visual Studio itself. The underlying issue is that Task Manager displays the Name it sees in the Icon table of the MSI file. So fixing it requires using an MSI file editor such as Orca to alter that name.

Open the MSI file with Orca and do a search for that string you see in the Startup (just the first few characters will suffice). You should see it in two places. One is the Icon table, so change it to something like My Application. The other place you'll see it is in the Shortcut table in the Icon field. Put exactly the same text in that field (and it literally must be an exact match because these things are database keys). Then save the MSI file. This corrected the issue when I tested it.

If this a regular thing then you could script the MSI change as a post-build event by running WiRunSql.vbs (Windows SDK) with the SQL to update those two fields.

Answer 2

This maybe an error with the VS extension.

Is that the path you are installing your application? How is that named on disk?

I suggest using Wix Toolset. I've used it and I can say it's more powerful then standard installer projects.