Dark_Omen
26th August 2002, 19:49
This is a very rough overview of how things should be done. In order to prevent further questions about how to do certain things above.
Here are some general rules:
- Read documentation, books, ebooks on the compiler you are using.
- Read on how programming works for the type of language that you chose.
It is mandatory that you read those above to prevent questions about how to compile programs and to ask repeatedly same questions over and over again. This I'm sure will save the mods from having to referring them to a discussion that has made ages ago.
Compiling:
As mentioned before in the pinned post of how to compile ogc hook, thanks to ]MpC[hebe. That is the basics of how to compile the files required. To compile using makefile you need to use nmake, which is usually bundled with every Microsoft Visual C++ regardless of the version. The tool has to be run in DOS mode or DOS emulation mode.
Decompiling:
Decompilinig things to make it readable is not easy, basically once you decompile a program, it turns into asm coding which is very complex to understand. There are programs however that will assist you in able to make most of the asm coding but it is recommended that you read books on how to understand the coding of asm.
Unpacking, packing, scrambling, patches and other misc utilities:
This is where some coders trys to make their program smaller or they don't want to have easily guessed ways to unpack the executable. As always, most programmers tend to protect their work by either packing it or scrambling it. There are 1000 different methods of how a programmer can come across doing so.
There are generic tools that will attempt to unpack/unscramble these sorts of data so that you get the pure 'uncompressed' asm code. Those however, does not necessarily come as in 'user friendly' form. They do serve great purposes for reverse engineering uses to the user needs. Do note however, there are legal battles about unpacking and unscrambling of data, so use it at your own needs.
Patches are simply like a script of what the program has to do, like a batch file but it is mainly focused on programs by ripping them apart and replace the code. This is done automatic but is not easy to code.
A good site that I would recommend is Programmers Tools:
http://linux20368.dn.net/protools/
For those who sees me posting misc codes on some files that I unpacked, the tools I got were from there.
Resource modifiers:
These are probably one of the 'fun' things you can do. They unpack the file and they sort it into category format, eg, where the picture goes, where the dialogue goes, etc. These can be modified at users ends, however not all programs can be modified and not all programs tend to function normally after modifying.
As a few people include wooolF[RM] said, there are resource hackers and resource finder.
Here are some general rules:
- Read documentation, books, ebooks on the compiler you are using.
- Read on how programming works for the type of language that you chose.
It is mandatory that you read those above to prevent questions about how to compile programs and to ask repeatedly same questions over and over again. This I'm sure will save the mods from having to referring them to a discussion that has made ages ago.
Compiling:
As mentioned before in the pinned post of how to compile ogc hook, thanks to ]MpC[hebe. That is the basics of how to compile the files required. To compile using makefile you need to use nmake, which is usually bundled with every Microsoft Visual C++ regardless of the version. The tool has to be run in DOS mode or DOS emulation mode.
Decompiling:
Decompilinig things to make it readable is not easy, basically once you decompile a program, it turns into asm coding which is very complex to understand. There are programs however that will assist you in able to make most of the asm coding but it is recommended that you read books on how to understand the coding of asm.
Unpacking, packing, scrambling, patches and other misc utilities:
This is where some coders trys to make their program smaller or they don't want to have easily guessed ways to unpack the executable. As always, most programmers tend to protect their work by either packing it or scrambling it. There are 1000 different methods of how a programmer can come across doing so.
There are generic tools that will attempt to unpack/unscramble these sorts of data so that you get the pure 'uncompressed' asm code. Those however, does not necessarily come as in 'user friendly' form. They do serve great purposes for reverse engineering uses to the user needs. Do note however, there are legal battles about unpacking and unscrambling of data, so use it at your own needs.
Patches are simply like a script of what the program has to do, like a batch file but it is mainly focused on programs by ripping them apart and replace the code. This is done automatic but is not easy to code.
A good site that I would recommend is Programmers Tools:
http://linux20368.dn.net/protools/
For those who sees me posting misc codes on some files that I unpacked, the tools I got were from there.
Resource modifiers:
These are probably one of the 'fun' things you can do. They unpack the file and they sort it into category format, eg, where the picture goes, where the dialogue goes, etc. These can be modified at users ends, however not all programs can be modified and not all programs tend to function normally after modifying.
As a few people include wooolF[RM] said, there are resource hackers and resource finder.