You should be aware that if you do find a utility program that lets you do what you want to do, and you actually USE it, you are mucking about with something that is part of a compiled program's header area. That header was build a certain way for a purpose. It is not wise to ignore the purpose.
If the program was digitally signed, this change will invalidate the signature, and Windows now looks at signatures when they are present. If the program header happens to have a checksum, this change will invalidate the checksum. If you are on a modern version of Windows, the task loader might refuse to touch a program with a header having a bad checksum. If you have an anti-viral package with heuristics enabled, this change (mucking a program header) will almost certainly trigger the heuristics traps and will cause your program to be ... isolated. Like, locked down tighter than a drum head.
In general, what you want to do is NOT a good idea. This is the kind of thing that hackers do. You don't want to be considered as a hacker, now do you? Naw, can't possibly want that...
Seriously, don't do this. I don't care if your contract or purpose is from the President of the United State himself, don't do this. Whatever you are trying to do, you are going about it the wrong way. While it might solve some immediate problem, nothing good long-term can come from such an action. In private industry, you MIGHT get away with this. However, in U.S. government service, attempting to do this might actually constitute a security breach that would bring a criminal investigation down on you.
Not only that... if you have patch tools that would update this particular program, you would render it unpatchable because most of them do exactly what you suggested to apply patches and record the fact. If you want to patch a program by hand, you are doing the wrong thing.
I know this seems a bit harsh, but I've been a security manager in a U.S. Navy environment for over 15 years. My reaction to your suggestion was earned the hard way - after a viral assault and having to do a cleanup.
