Managed or native executable?

Depends.exe. If you see mscoree.dll then it is a .NET app.

Ah yeah, thanks. I remember using that once upon a time.

The traditional way is to just run ildasm.exe on the assembly. If it''s not a managed assembly, it will fail accordingly.

I''m assuming from the other posts that you wanted a way to test by hand. If you want a way to test programmatically there are ways of doing that as well.

Suzanne listed both the "by hand" and programmable options in her blog: http://weblogs.asp.net/suzcook/archive/2004/03/17/91715.aspx

Assuming you want to do it from code: see check_managed_app() in crt0.c Digging around always pays off Not sure how far into undocumented land this takes you, though.