This should be obvious, but this will only work on NTFS!
I have never seen or heard of this being done before; this whole project is a proof-of-concept.
be sure to change the command line variables in the Linker in the Project properties for helloworld-DLL and helloworld-app or you'll get build errors cause the output path doesn't exist. I moved the code to a different computer that didn't have the same paths.
This is a test project which compiles an Executable and Dynamic Link-Library into Alternate-Data-Streams (ADS) I have named helloworld-DLL.ps1:.exe and helloworld-DLL.ps1:.dll. The Powershell script, when run, will create symbolic links to the streams and name them; helloworld-app.exe and helloworld-DLL.dll. Files seem to be able to tell what other files are in the directory with it. So you can't just run helloworld-DLL.ps1:.exe it will complain there is no .dll file even though its in a data stream in the same file! The files need to be next to each other in the same directory. I do not know why.
I have not figured out how to have files recognize they are in streams in the same file or if this is even possible.
Also building as Debug does not work! You must build as Release. I have not figured out why this is either.
If you are going to do this project I highly suggest building this File manager as it allows you to see Alternate-Data-Streams as files in the file browser as an option. https://github.com/files-community/Files/
It is a WinUI3 application so running it can be a little confusing.
If you're having trouble make a shortcut file and paste: C:\Windows\explorer.exe shell:appsFolder\FilesDev_ykqwq8d6ps0ag!App into it.
This is cause the program isn't runnable though the exe file its self. Make sure you deploy the solution after building or it can't be run; as far as I know. (which I don't know) This is just what I have found.
There is also an issue with the PowerShell script not being input into the .ps1 file. If so just copy-paste
if( -not(Test-Path -Path ".\helloworld-app.exe") -and -not(Test-Path -Path "helloworld-DLL.dll")){
New-Item -ItemType SymbolicLink -Path "helloworld-app.exe" -Value ".\helloworld-DLL.ps1:.exe"
New-Item -ItemType SymbolicLink -Path "helloworld-DLL.dll" -Value ".\helloworld-DLL.ps1:.dll"
}
Invoke-Expression -Command ".\helloworld-app.exe"into the, probably empty, helloworld.ps1 file that should have been populated with helloworld-DLL.cpp. Also hard-links don't work to link to ADS.
By the end you should have two symbolic links one to each alternate data stream that was built.
All of the "secret-sauce" is in the Linker settings in the Project properties.