Starting an application located in an Alternate Data Stream

On Windows 7, starting a program located in an Alternate Data Stream (e.g. start c:\temp\application.exe开发者_运维知识库:hiddenProgram.exe) does not work anymore!

Using Process Monitor, I see that the access result is OK, but somehow, the OS is blocking access to this file. On Vista and earlier versions, this method used to work.

Does anyone knows how to start it using windows 7 ?

---

Do what Marc Russinovich does with the Sysinternals tools: store additional executables as resources in the main EXE and unpack them when needed.

There is an additional advantage over ADS: portability. ADS do not survive being stored on FAT formatted volumes, for example.

This technique can indeed be helpful if you want to distribute single EXEs that unpack required device drivers or other helper tools when needed (-> Sysinternals).