There are two kinds of resource files. There is a textual resource file
which contains your definitions of the menus, dialog boxes, strings, and
accelerator tables. This file typically has the extension .RC.

It would take MEWEL a long time to read in and decode resource descriptions
if they were written out in a textual format. To speed things up, we use a
resource compiler to translate the textual descriptions into binary
descriptions. The resource compiler produces a binary resource file with
the same name as the textual resource file but with an .RES extension.

You can invoke the resource compiler as follows:

rc filename        <---- assumes an .rc extension
rc filename.ext    <---- you can use any extension

The generated output will be written to a file of the same name but with a
".res" extension.

If you are using DOS version 3.0 or greater, you can append the .res output
file to the end of your application's EXE file. The advantage of this is
that there will be one less file on your user's disk, and the application
will seem more "compact".  To append the RES file to the end of your EXE
file, you must invoke the resource compiler as follows:

rc filename.res

The filename of the RES file must be the same name as the application's EXE
file. For instance, if you have an application called DESKTOP.EXE and you
have a binary resource file called DESKTOP.RES, and you want to append the
resource file to the end of  the EXE file, you would issue the command :

rc desktop.res

The disadvantage of this method is that certain debuggers, like Microsoft
Codeview, need to find their debugging information at the end of the EXE
file. If you place MEWEL resource data at the end of the EXE file, then the
debuggers will not function properly. We recommend that you use external
RES files until your application is fully debugged. Then, if you want, you
can use this method.