Hi there!

First of all, I would appreciate anybody’s input to answer my following question.

After a couple of weeks that I have been learning ASM and doing various crackme challenges I understand how reverse engineering and cracking works. The current challenge that I’m working on requires to apply some changes to the program i.e. changing the window’s title string (Title = "Unregistered". What I need to know is, how do you actually apply the changes? Let’s say I want to change the title string. Do you need to patch it or what?

Thanx,

Ryno

Ryno:

If you have actually read the FAQ, you would know that you are supposed to show that you have attempted to find the answer to your own question. You obviously haven't done anything to try to find out how to change the title of a window, which suggests you have no idea how windows get their titles, where such titles may be found in the code, and/or the process windows uses to change them. This suggests that you haven't done much in the way of basic research on how windows works, certainly with regard to window creation and naming.

This is not a basic education school where you can come and plead ignorance and ask someone to teach you everything you might need to know about the basics of how window display and naming works in various programing systems.

Time for you to do your own work and do some searching on the net for information. One possible search criteria which comes easily to mind might be;

"changing a window's name" (without the quotes.)

You could try variations of the suggestion, such as "window's title" and you might even go the the Microsoft website and try reading up on how windows gives titles to the windows it displays, although your program, which you should not name, might be written in visual basic, .net. or some other programining language, which would affect that criteria.

You also need to read up on resource editors and hex editors which offer ways to change certain code within an exe.

At the bottom of these Forums you will find links which will provide you with a whole host of reading materials on the basics of reverse code engineering.

Regards,

Ok fair enough. I wasn’t actually asking you to teach me anything regarding window titles. If you look closely you will see that my question focused more on how the process of making changes to you application works. I’m not lazy to read up on stuff neither to do research. Since this is a forum to post questions I see no harm by seeking GUIDELINES and other’s point of view.

Thanks you for your reply though JMI…

Ryno

you hexedit your changes using a hexeditor oddly enough

You can also used Ollydbg by searching the strings and change the values in the memory,and then copy to executable

Or you SendMessage a WM_SETTEXT message to the target window , after it has been created...

Regards, bilbo

There is alot of patching apps on the net but the better one is this one you can write yourself !

Or you can use a utility recently posted here. (Showstring)

SiGiNT

Thanks guys.
See... that was all I was looking for...

Oh, and just about every beginner newbie cracking tut that targets an app to be patched (and that's a shitload) should have info on patching. Heck, I think there's got to be at least 100+ tuts on fravia, that mentions patching in one way or another.
While asking might help you along quick and will probably introduce you to some of the people, reading tuts and experimenting on your own still is the best way to learn.

Fake

I would like to say that JMI and Fake51 are both right...And I HAVE to agree with them...

Anyway, another way is to use ResourceHacker ( You can easily find it on the net and it's free) to change the items you wanted and more...If the resources are not packed or encrypted or hidden in any way...