Does visual studio "watermark" builds with unique metadata

Question

Does visual studio "watermark" builds? If I used the same solution and build settings, on different computers (same vs build, same build settings), should I always get the same build?

Do any of the microsoft compilers (VB6, sketchflow, etc) "watermark" builds?

By "watermark", I mean attach metadata about the build environment.

Edit 1 With regards to the metadata, I'm wondering if unique metadata (outside of compiler version) is attached. For example, usernames, mac addresses, build environment(screen size, directories, cpu version, etc.) or hashed keys, etc.

Edit 2 There is a similar question at Visual Studio store hidden data in the compiled files?.

Esbenshade

Questions about programming tools belong on Stack Overflow. – Spheroid

Applications can often be tracked back to a general compiler version with some accuracy (MSVC10, MSVCV9, GCC4, etc), so there is some metadata or just unique traits built in. – Devine

Most build tools will write a proper value for IMAGE_FILE_HEADER.TimeDateStamp. Not exactly a water mark but enough to make a binary mismatch. – Thistle

Answer 1

You could try it and see. A program like WinMerge will compare two files and show you the difference. If you don't have multiple build environments you could create a project and ask somebody online to compile it for you.

My guess is there will be small differences if they're using a different version of Visual Studio, the CLR or the runtime libraries involved.

You probably want to know whether something malicious is being done, such as the MAC address of the machine being used to compile the code is included somewhere. I highly doubt it. There are people that pay attention to this type of thing and it gets companies in hot water when they're found out.

Clarethaclaretta

Indeed it would be trivial to try building a solution in your computer and then in a very similar virtual machine (same compiler and framework version) and compare the outputs. – Marlite