Skill Level: Newbie
Attack Plan: Patching
Target: PowerTweak II
Tools Needed: Hiew W32Dasm
This seems to be a nice little utility for optimizing your processor operations. I haven't had time to fully test it yet, but if it does what it says it does, I may have to buy it.
There are 3 executables for this utility, all of which have the protection in, so you'll have to patch all 3. This is a very weak Cinderella protection that can be fooled by simply turning your system clock back.
Now on to the tutorial. ;-)
Set your clock ahead a month. Try running the program and note the error message.
Disassemble one of the executables.
Search for the error message you received.
Just above this is a compare between a register and 14h(20 decimal....hmmm...same as the # of days in the trial).
The code below the JL never gets executed unless the trial expires so we don't need to worry about replacing instructions we overwrite.
Fire up HIEW (I like this editor because it allows us to make changes in asm mode). Go to the offset of the line we need to change. Change it from JL to JMP, pad with NOP's to get the rest of the instructions to line up properly again, and save the changes. Repeat the process with the other 2 executables.
After you've done this to all 3 executables, run the program. It should run normally. Reset your system clock, and you're done. that was easy enough I hope ;-)
GREETZ & THANX to all of the people who've helped me @ the Newbies Forum. (I'm too damn lazy to type all the names ;-))