A question to Christoph about plugins and Windows platform.
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I was checking SynthEdit and I found that it export the vst plugins with all the graphic files and modules outside the vst. Jeff McClintock made this choice about that explaining so ""...the reason for this is Microsoft Windows increased security which prevents files being extracted from a VST at runtime.".I found that a bit weird, I mean Hise or other software have no problems about create vst with all the stuff inside, Windows behavior is normal, no prevent actions or other. @Christoph-Hart what d'you think about? Is it possible that Microsoft security system has issues with vst compiled as Hise or other software for audio developing? I never noticed that thing
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Lol why would you want to extract them to disk on runtime? Looks like a funky hack.
All resources are compressed using zstd and embedded into the plugin so you don‘t need to extract anything.
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@Christoph-Hart said in A question to Christoph about plugins and Windows platform.:
Lol why would you want to extract them to disk on runtime? Looks like a funky hack.
All resources are compressed using zstd and embedded into the plugin so you don‘t need to extract anything.
Huh? I don't want extract them (maybe I explained it badly, sorry), I saw that SynthEdit do that, so I was asking you if is it true what Jeff says about Microsoft, that it's better don't put graphic elements and other stuffu inside the vst because Microsoft security prevents files being extracted from VST at runtime. I never noticed that when a vst is used the Wiondows OS extracts the stuff from the vst, I can't believe in that. Just like what d'you think about this thing Jeff McClintock said... imho I think it's a weird concept and I'm really surprided that Jeff said that :)
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Well the difference between HISE and SynthEdit is that SynthEdit doesn‘t compile anything but has (probably) a runtime wrapper that loads the plugin file and there are limitations of how this might work with embedded data (but I have no clue what SynthEdit actually does so this is jisz am educated guess).
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@Christoph-Hart Thank you, well the guys who use it, told me that SynthEdit 1.1 exported a normal dll (vst2) and only from the 1.2 version the exporting on VST2 and now VST3 have the external files because Microsoft security system could block the plugins (that is Jeff's thought) but they also asking about the real possibility that 8.1 or Windows 10 can really block packed files inside the VST. Maybe you are surely right, Jeff could change from the 1.2 version using a runtime wrapper.
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They don‘t care about VST plugins, they just forbid a program without admin rights to write to the Program Files folder. That‘s why there is a AppData folder...
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Synthedit is not the only one to do that.
Arturia too (their images and settings files are outside the plugin - in appdata or other), but they use JUCE.
U-HE too, but I do not know how they code their plugins.I do not know if it's a security issue, but I notice that often these plugins are more "heavy" and CPU hog.
May be unrelated to this, but I notice it here ...
Personally I'm not for unless you want to allow your users to create custom skins for your plugins. Your GUI is yours. Leaving it outside allows everyone to recover and do what they want. -
@staiff said in A question to Christoph about plugins and Windows platform.:
I do not know if it's a security issue, but I notice that often these plugins are more "heavy" and CPU hog.
I didn't find that VST I'm working on with Hise are hungry of CPU by the way :) But what you say makes sense, with Delphi, I used to put graphics and other stuff into external dlls that were called by the program, which is a normal practice and I find it more orderly than filling a folder with many files, unless, as you say, the intent of the developer is to allow the user to customize the graphic environment.
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@staiff said in A question to Christoph about plugins and Windows platform.:
I do not know if it's a security issue, but I notice that often these plugins are more "heavy" and CPU hog.
Yeah, that's nonsense. It has literally no effect on CPU usage whether resources are embedded in the plugin binary or not.
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@Christoph-Hart said in A question to Christoph about plugins and Windows platform.:
Yeah, that's nonsense. It has literally no effect on CPU usage whether resources are embedded in the plugin binary or not.
Totally agree :)
