breaking an .exe file

breaking an .exe file

Postby Grump642 on 24 Feb 2009 05:50

Is there any way to decompile an executable file with out executing the installer?
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Re: breaking an .exe file

Postby VINTAR on 24 Feb 2009 05:55

Dont know if it will help. but check this link :

http://www.backerstreet.com/rec/rec.htm
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Re: breaking an .exe file

Postby Grump642 on 24 Feb 2009 15:22

Checked it out, says it works on Win95 and Win98. Little old
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Re: breaking an .exe file

Postby NatVac on 24 Feb 2009 16:54

If you are talking about decompiling the installer executable, I know it is possible with certain installers. For example, the WinZip self-extracting installer can be opened by WinZip (and likely others, like 7-Zip) and the files can be examined and extracted.

But some installers (notably "packers") require a decompression stage just to get that far. Although it might be this way to save disk space and download bandwidth, it is usually a deliberate attempt to hide the executable's contents, although that might be simply an IP-protection attempt rather than hiding malware.
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Re: breaking an .exe file

Postby Grump642 on 24 Feb 2009 17:50

What I was wanting to do is decompile that .exe for the SDK patch and check the files. DonReba said Fucksoft is the name of the Co that made the installer and that my Antivirus was wrong. Don't think he checked it himself. Sounds really strange to me. I just want to know for sure. If I am wrong, I will say so.
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Re: breaking an .exe file

Postby NatVac on 25 Feb 2009 18:51

Well, for what it's worth:

I found the Universal Extractor, based on AutoIt (runtime included) and utilizing a host of free/open source extractors and identifiers, apparently included.

The site has a high legitimacy value for me; check out the high degree of openness (e.g., open source, support forum, links, other software, tip pages) and history. The McAfee Site Advisor page for legroom.net says the basic package is okay.

A sufficiency of decision-making info can be found on the main page, with credits and links to the extraction tools. I didn't know that an open-source unpacker existed for InnoSetup!

It's not ideal for this task, however. Here's an option for the extractor:
Warn before executing files - some .exe archives must actually be executed in order to perform the extraction. Since this can be a security risk (executing unknown/untrusted code is always a bad idea), UniExtract will display a warning before extracting these types of files.

But perhaps you can try it and then say no if it warns you. I might do this later, but it's low priority at the moment.
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Re: breaking an .exe file

Postby Grump642 on 26 Feb 2009 02:19

I know how busy you are with ZRP, so thank you. One of my favorite sites for software is SourceForge. Love open source.
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Re: breaking an .exe file

Postby NatVac on 26 Feb 2009 20:51

Heh, it's not the ZRP that's keeping me busy as much as the support! A lot of Nymlits have discovered the game, now that it is sold for pennies on the digital distribution sites.

I love open source software. I can tweak an application to suit myself if I need to. And a lot of the expensive stuff has some stupid idea of what's important, resulting in bloatware.
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Re: breaking an .exe file

Postby Grump642 on 28 Feb 2009 22:20

Extractor worked very well. I checked the files in the .exe for that patch, and they were clean. Still does not excuse the attitude I got at GSC-Game.
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Re: breaking an .exe file

Postby NatVac on 01 Mar 2009 06:09

That's good to know about the Extractor! And yes, the reception of a perfectly-valid point was less than friendly; I'm not sure what happened there.

I'm still not in favor of using software from a company that prides itself on its puerile-rebellion use of expletives, even if it is otherwise clean.
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