Update doesn’t load manifest file

Problem: After installation of the latest update GFA-BASIC 32 shows old-style common controls. There is only one reason for this failure: the manifest file isn’t loaded.
After starting GFA-BASIC 32 the differences are clear from the tabs in the sidebar:

The left image shows the IDE without common controls 6.0 support as opposed to the right image that shows new style controls.

GB External Manifest
GFA-BASIC 32 uses an external, side-by-side, manifest. The manifest is used to enable the common controls version 6 for the GfaWin32.exe. The manifest could have been added as a resource, but not all GB32-programs support the windows common controls version 6. In general, an external manifest should be as good as a resource enabled EXE. However, modified external manifests aren't applied always properly or aren’t applied at all. Windows doesn’t always recognize a new manifest and it requires a reboot to get a new manifest loaded. But, not even that solves the problem for everybody. Some never suffer from this problem, others seem not to get rid of it. At first I couldn’t reproduce this behavior, let alone I could solve it ...

After some research I came across the following pages blog #1 and blog #2 that explain this behavior. Coupled with the bits and pieces I further read on the internet I hope to have found an answer and it is not entirely the same as described.
 
The Activation Context Cache
To improve CreateProcess performance, manifests are cached in the Activation Context Cache. Its not the manifest-file that gets cached, but a note that some EXE requires a Manifest-file. The cache stores the full path of the exe and the last modified time of the exe file. To force a reload of the manifest-file the last-modified date of the EXE must be newer than that of the manifest file.But that doesn’t always solve the problem, the cache’s entry must be removed first.

Re-enable the manifest
The binaries from the GFA-BASIC 32 Update are newer than the manifest file and oddly the controls are still displayed in the old-style. Seems the theory doesn't apply entirely, otherwise the manifest would be loaded properly. Probably the cache must be cleared first (reboot) because it contains data that prevents the loader from applying the manifest. We need to invalidate the cache’s entry for GfaWin32.exe. One way to proceed is like this.

1. Make sure the modification date of the EXE is more recent than the last-modified date of the manifest file (more about this in a minute).
2. Start GfaWin32.exe without a manifest present to invalidate (or remove) the entry in the cache that applies to the GfaWin32.exe. For example. rename the manifest to something like GfaWin32(1).exe.manifest. Old-style controls will be displayed.
3. Reboot the computer.
4. Rename the manifest to its previous name: GfaWin32.exe.manifest
5. Start GFA-BASIC 32 (and keep your fingers crossed).

Only way I got it right
This process described above might fail again, at least with me it didn’t work all the time. The only way I could make this work is by re-setting the last-modified date of the GfaWin32.exe. I had to explicitly apply the Touch # command on the GfaWin32.exe to have the manifest-file loaded and applied.

Of course, as a programmer you might like to write your own Touch utility, but you cannot Run it inside the IDE to access the GfaWin32.exe you are running from. For convenience reasons you could download this Touch tool and copy it to the GFA-BASIC’s Bin directory. Before running the tool make sure GfaWin32.exe isn’t running.

New Update Feb 2018
In Download section you can also find the new time stamped files included in Feb 2018 update zip files. The manifest file itself has changed also, it is now simple file as discussed below. Hope it fixes the problem.

Add Manifest-resource to your own EXE
When researching this problem I tried different manifest files. I found the manifest file generated from mt.exe as described in Using mt to include manifest on this blog very useful. The manifest only specifies the dependency on the common controls 6.0. The manifest is very clean and isn’t dependent on version-info and the name of the exe. You get this same manifest-file as a resource in your own EXE when you check the Add manifest resource checkbox in the compile-to-exe dialog box. You can also add it as a ‘side-by-side’ file and put it in the same directory as your exe.