I've got a demo soft. for making engineering calculation sheets. It contains blank forms, similar to MathCAD, and spreadsheets, similar to Excel. The objects on the blank form can be equations, texts (eg.imported from MS-Word), charts, or pictures. The equations can also be linked to its spreadsheets.

I've studied this demo for some time and so far found that it's equipped with the following protections:
1. nag screen with 30-day time limit.
2. the created files can't be reopened.
3. can't create more than 1 form and 1 sheet.
4. can't protect the spreadsheet cells.
5. put unregistered msg. with the printouts and all the objects copied.

The soft. is coded using Delphi. Recently released patch by FCN cleared only 1. I've already removed 1, 3 and found a workaround for 2. 4 isn't important to me. What's important is 5, which I can't find the text that is used in the watermark anywhere. The objects pasted in Word appear with the mssg. in picture format. How to deal with this? How is the message inserted in the object we copy? TIA.

Best regards,

you answered by yourself, it's in picture format.

So you better look for some bitmap related api used :
BitBlt
CreateBitmap
CreateBitmapIndirect
CreateCompatibleBitmap
LoadBitmap

and some other related to device context
look at win docs and check some essays related to anti advertisement

Hello MuT !

You could load the .EXE into a resource-editor and look at all bitmaps. It may take some time, but if you're lucky you can search for the resource id. It could be used by "Push 0000xxxx" (where xxxx=hex resource id) or by "Mov EAX, 0000xxxx".
If you haven't so much luck and it has a recource id of 0,1,2,... you could search it forever. In this chase I would use tsehp's method, too.
(searching for "Push 00000000" will get many search results )

Hi,

I also thought about this and already checked the resource but didn't find the watermark. What're other possible ways to embed the bitmap into their soft. I'm not familiar with Delphi. Just wonder if it's Delphi that complicates this. Thanks for all suggestions.

Best regards

Hi all,

After all I found it using resource editor. It's a picture assignment in TMAINFORM under RCDATA. Previously I looked only in the long BITMAP section. After removing the assignment, everything looks OK. Thanks for the guidance.

Best regards

Hi, I am working on an application for creating cartoon animations (can be exported as a Flash or QuickTime movie). I've successfully removed the time trial limitation but I can't defeat the watermark. In all exported movies, it has a "TBS" watermark but I can't find it in the string references or the bitmap resource.

Is there a way to embed an image in the program itself? If so, are there any tools that can aid me in location the images? So far, I've used Resource Hacker and exescope but can't locate the images.

Thanks for the help.

Necrophilia is bad...

It is trivial to create a bitmap in memory directly from code. For example, the bitrmap data itself may be in some enciphered format somewhere in the exe. A section of code simply creates some heap space, adds a bmp header, deciphers the bitmap data and then uses it as required. There is absolutely no need to embed the entire bitmap as a resource etc. Perhaps you should look for API calls that deal with manipulating gfx rather than loading them (Bitblt etc).

Disagree with Silver: Necrophilia has its charms. . .
At least Chronos searched the board, and found one thread somewhat related to his problem, so at least he did not revived the corpse to say: "Great thread, thank you" as it is customary.

chronos was doing what with the dead? And on Christmas Eve. Oh the shame of it all.

Regards,

lol you guys are unbelievable :P