diff --git a/Modules/CMakeVerifyManifest.cmake b/Modules/CMakeVerifyManifest.cmake
new file mode 100644
index 000000000..854a2eadf
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+++ b/Modules/CMakeVerifyManifest.cmake
@@ -0,0 +1,91 @@
+# CMakeVerifyManifest.cmake
+#
+# This script is used to verify that embeded manifests and
+# side by side manifests for a project match.  To run this
+# script, cd to a directory and run the script with cmake -P.
+# On the command line you can pass in versions that are OK even
+# if not found in the .manifest files. For example, 
+# cmake -Dallow_versions=8.0.50608.0 -PCmakeVerifyManifest.cmake
+# could be used to allow an embeded manifest of 8.0.50608.0
+# to be used in a project even if that version was not found
+# in the .manifest file.
+
+# This script first recursively globs *.manifest files from
+# the current directory.  Then globs *.exe and *.dll.  Each
+# .exe and .dll is scanned for embeded manifests and the versions
+# of CRT are compared to those found in the .manifest files
+# from the first glob.
+
+# function to extract the CRT version from a file
+# this can be passed a .exe, .dll, or a .manifest file
+# it will put the list of versions found into the variable
+# specified by list_var
+function(crt_version file list_var)
+  file(STRINGS "${file}" strings REGEX "Microsoft.VC...CRT")
+  foreach(s ${strings})
+    set(has_match 1)
+    string(REGEX
+      REPLACE ".*version=.([^\"]*). (.*)$" "\\1" 
+      version "${s}")
+    if(NOT "${version}" STREQUAL "")
+      list(APPEND version_list ${version})
+    else()
+      message(FATAL_ERROR "Parse error could not find version in [${s}]")
+    endif()
+  endforeach(s)
+  if(NOT DEFINED has_match)
+    message("Information: no embeded manifest in: ${file}")
+    return()
+  endif()
+  list(APPEND version_list ${${list_var}})
+  list(REMOVE_DUPLICATES version_list)
+  if(version_list)
+    set(${list_var} ${version_list} PARENT_SCOPE)
+  endif()
+endfunction(crt_version)
+set(fatal_error FALSE)
+# test a file against the shipped manifest versions
+# for a directory
+function(check_version file manifest_versions)
+  set(manifest_versions ${manifest_versions} ${allow_versions})
+  # collect versions for a given file
+  crt_version(${file} file_versions)
+  # see if the versions 
+  foreach(ver ${file_versions})
+    list(FIND manifest_versions "${ver}" found_version)
+    if("${found_version}" EQUAL -1)
+      message("ERROR: ${file} uses ${ver} not found in shipped manifest.")
+      set(fatal_error TRUE PARENT_SCOPE)
+    endif()
+  endforeach(ver)
+  list(LENGTH file_versions len)
+  if(${len} GREATER 1)
+    message("WARNING: found more than one version of MICROSOFT.VC80.CRT referenced in ${file}: [${file_versions}]")
+  endif()
+endfunction()
+
+# collect up the versions of CRT that are shipped
+# in .manifest files
+set(manifest_version_list )
+file(GLOB_RECURSE manifest_files "*.manifest")
+foreach(f ${manifest_files})
+  crt_version("${f}" manifest_version_list)
+endforeach(f)
+message("Versions found in ${manifest_files}: ${manifest_version_list}")
+message("Extra versions allowed ${allow_versions}")
+
+# now find all .exe and .dll files
+# and call check_version on each of them
+file(GLOB_RECURSE exe_files "*.exe")
+file(GLOB_RECURSE dll_files "*.dll")
+set(exe_files ${exe_files} ${dll_files})
+foreach(f ${exe_files})
+  check_version(${f} ${manifest_version_list})
+endforeach()
+
+# report a fatal error if there were any so that cmake will return
+# a non zero value
+if(fatal_error)
+  message(FATAL_ERROR "This distribution has mis-matched dll"
+    " versions and may not work on other machines.")
+endif()