Workshop: Borland Resource

This created a strange ecosystem: a tool from a rival company becoming the gold standard for Windows development on Microsoft’s platform.

: Handle a wide array of Windows resources, including bitmapped images, icons, string tables, and accelerators.

However, many developers who hated Borland’s compiler still used BRW. It was common to see a Microsoft Visual C++ project where the .RC file was edited exclusively in Borland Resource Workshop. Microsoft’s own resource editor (in MSVC 4.x and 5.x) was so inferior that developers kept an old copy of Borland C++ installed just for the Workshop. borland resource workshop

You could embed any binary data—sound effects, configuration blobs, even small databases—as a custom resource type. Quake used this pattern. So did many shareware games.

It supported every standard Windows control: buttons, edit boxes, list boxes, combo boxes, scroll bars, and even custom controls via the "Owner Draw" mechanism. You could set properties like WS_TABSTOP , GROUPBOX , and ES_NUMBER via checkboxes—no memorizing manifest constants. This created a strange ecosystem: a tool from

If you have an old VM, fire it up. Import PROGMAN.EXE . Change "Program Manager" to your own name. Save. Run it.

BRW’s most famous feature was its split view. On the left, a project tree of all resources (Dialogs, Icons, Cursors, Bitmaps, Version Info). On the right, the visual editor. You could switch between "Visual" and "Source" mode instantly. Editing the source code would update the visual canvas, and vice versa—a live two-way binding decades before modern hot-reload tools. It was common to see a Microsoft Visual

Have a memory of using Borland Resource Workshop? Share your story in the comments below.