section '.rsrc' data readable resource from 'resource.res'    

00 00 00 00 - 20 00 00 00 - FF FF 00 00 - ? ? ? ? - ? ? FF FF - 00 00 ? ? --- (SOURCE\FORMATS.INC lines 1688-1698)

Because it might be desirable for an ISV's tool that reads and writes
resource files to be able to read either the older Windows 16 format
files and the new Windows 32 format, Microsoft has devised a method
to do this using illegal type and name ordinal numbers.

The method involved is to place an illegal resource in the resource
file. The following eight bytes were chosen:

0x00 0x00 0x00 0x00 0x20 0x00 0x00 0x00

Assume that it is a 16-bit file. In that case, the Type is illegal
since the first 0x00 says string, but a zero-length string is an
illegal string. This, then is an illegal 16-bit resource header,
indicating that the file is a 32-bit file.

Assume that it is a 32-bit file. Given that, the size of the data is
zero, which surely will never be the case.

The Windows 32 resource compiler prefaces each 32-bit resource file
with this string of data (followed by an additional data structure
describing a zero-length resource with 0 ordinal type and 0 ordinal
name), allowing differentiation of 16 and 32-bit resource files. Any
tools reading resource files should ignore this resource.

format PE GUI
include 'win32ax.inc'
; import data in the same section
ZZZ_TEST equ 0
ZZZ_OPEN equ 1
ZZZ_SAVE equ 2
ZZZ_EXIT equ 3

          xor ebx,ebx
          mov edi,wTitle
          mov esi,400000h
          ; +------------------------------+
          ; | registering the window class |
          ; +------------------------------+
          invoke RegisterClass,esp,ebx,WndProc,ebx,\
          ebx,esi,ebx,10011h,COLOR_WINDOW+1,menu_name,edi
          ; +--------------------------+
          ; | creating the main window |
          ; +--------------------------+
          push ebx esi ebx ebx
          shl esi,9
          invoke CreateWindowEx,ebx,edi,edi,WS_OVERLAPPEDWINDOW+\
          WS_VISIBLE,esi,esi,esi,esi
          mov ebp,esp
          ; +---------------------------+
          ; | entering the message loop |
          ; +---------------------------+
message_loop: invoke GetMessage,ebp,ebx,ebx,ebx
          invoke DispatchMessage,ebp
          jmp message_loop
          ; +----------------------+
          ; | the window procedure |
          ; +----------------------+
proc WndProc,hWnd,uMsg,wParam,lParam
         mov eax,[uMsg]
         dec eax; cmp uMsg,WM_DESTROY
         dec eax
         je wmDESTROY
         sub eax,WM_COMMAND-WM_DESTROY; cmp uMsg,WM_PAINT
         je wmCOMMAND
         leave
         jmp dword [DefWindowProc]

wmCOMMAND: mov ebx,[wParam]
         cmp ebx,ZZZ_EXIT
         je wmDESTROY;menu_exit
show_msg:    
         invoke MessageBox,[hWnd],[menu_handlers+ebx*4],menu_name,eax
         ret
wmDESTROY:  invoke ExitProcess,ebx
endp
;--------------------------------------------------------------------
     ;exp = experiment
wTitle    db   'Iczelion Tutorial #8-1:Creating a menu through a resource file in FASM',0 ;name of our window
menu_name       db      'ZZZ_Menu',0
test_msg        db      'You select menu item TEST',0
open_msg        db      'You select menu item OPEN',0
save_msg        db      'You select menu item SAVE',0
menu_handlers dd test_msg, open_msg, save_msg
;---------------------------------------------------------------------
data import

 library KERNEL32, 'KERNEL32.DLL',\
         user32,   'USER32.DLL'
 import KERNEL32,\
               ExitProcess,        'ExitProcess'
 import user32,\
                RegisterClass,      'RegisterClassA',\
                CreateWindowEx,     'CreateWindowExA',\
                DefWindowProc,      'DefWindowProcA',\
                GetMessage,         'GetMessageA',\
                DispatchMessage,    'DispatchMessageA',\
                DestroyWindow,      'DestroyWindow',\
                MessageBox,         'MessageBoxA'
end data
section '.rsrc' resource from 'ftut_08-01.res' data readable    

#define ZZZ_TEST 0
#define ZZZ_OPEN 1
#define ZZZ_SAVE 2
#define ZZZ_EXIT 3

ZZZ_Menu MENU 
{
        POPUP "&File"
        {       MENUITEM "&Test",ZZZ_TEST
                MENUITEM "&Open",ZZZ_OPEN
                MENUITEM "&Save",ZZZ_SAVE
                MENUITEM SEPARATOR
                MENUITEM "&Exit",ZZZ_EXIT
        }
        MENUITEM "&Exit",ZZZ_EXIT
}    

set masm32_path=\masm32\
set filename=ftut_08-01
%masm32_path%\bin\RC /r /i"%masm32_path%\Include" %filename%.rc    

Note for Privalov: while tinkering with Visual Studio at some point it spit out an empty/corrupted .res file, which is basically just the first 0x20 bytes stub header. I'm not sure if the part of code in FASM dedicated to resource importing is supposed to be fail-proof or not, but anyway merely importing that file makes both FASMW and FASM crash during compilation. Just in case you wanted to investigate the problem.

BTW off topic but, since you mentioned a Hex Editor, I'd recommend instead HxD, it can also deal with larger files than 2GB (doesn't memory map it, and only writes the part of the file actually modified when saving).