What would be an alternative for parameters?

Question

We may all have used (sooner or later) Parameters to define how our Application should start or to add more infos to it. Either you can use lpParameters/lpCommandLine in ShellExecute(ex)/CreateProcess or even use it in a direct call in the cmd like this MyApplication.exe -parameter1 -parameter2 -n.

Sometimes there are conflicts with applications that use the same parameter names for different purposes or nowadays you can even see which parameters have been used for an Application. I was wondering if it is possible to use a different method on how to add more infos to my application BEFORE it actually starts (like parameters). I don't know much about the PE System (yet), but I was wondering if it was possible to use the CreateProcess API and start the Application suspended - write/change/modify (with WriteProcessMemory) an offset of a constant (or var) that I have declared in my sourcecode (or something like that...) and finally resume it.

I'm sure it is possible but It comes with some questions like:

1. How/Where can I get the offset of a constant from a PE file?
2. What happens if the file is packed/crypted?
3. Many more

So the final question would be - What would be an alternative for parameters? (maybe based on my idea?!)

Answer 1

There are other ways to pass data to a new process when it starts running without resorting to hacking its memory beforehand.

How do I pass a lot of data to a process when it starts up?

Undocumented and hard-to-find information regarding the CreateProcess API call (scroll down to the "Pass arbitrary data to a child process!" section)