by ether, 5 May 1998
Written by ether 5 may 1998
An understanding of how to create a dead listing of a program is required, thats about all i think..
perhaps someone else might get something from it.
One thing that has really annoyed me in the past is the demo version thats already
expired when you install it.
Paintshop Pro 5 demo-version, for me turned out to be just that.
The last thing I wanted after spending precious time downloading the bloody
thing.
ultra edit 4
Of course, you may choose any tools you like to complete the job.
Part of the reason i chose this target was i knew its history
sortof anyway, that is i knew that its one of the most readily
available graphics programs on the warez scene and has been since
the dawn of time i think, therefore an easy crack or at the very least
good practice for newbies like me & practice for future projects to ;)
H
E
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S
S
A
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I ran setup and rebooted when asked. I made a coffee and prepared myself for action.
RUN THE TARGET:
You can imagine my disapointment
when i got;
"this demo copy of paintshop pro has expired please download the latest version"
yeh right, as if I want to download another 7mb of DEMO-VERSION.
I had this problem a few weeks back when I installed an old borland
C++ compiler I had on a cd and couldnt work out how to crack it.
I decided that I had a good chance with this prog though because its
so widely available on warez sites etc., and always has been, therefore
it must be an easy crack!
I ran softice and played around with a few Z flags here and there,
but not being very ASM savvy I have prefer the more relaxed, dead listing
approach.
DISASSEMBLE THE TARGET:
so i disassemble the target, and searching the string data references
I find a few leads. as i searched thuogh the listing i noticed some odd string
data refs, one being "6" then about 10 lines of ASM code followed by another
string data ref "4" more ASM code followed by another string data ref "98",
its very obvious after playing with the system clock just what this is...
what i decided to do was change the 98 to 99 giving me the +ime i would like to
try out this demo+version ( which i might add looks very nice :)
NOTE:
If you also changed the 6 & 4 to 31 & 12 respectively i think we should be right
for the next million years or so.. dunno i havent tried changing this yet as
my whole pc will probably shit-itself if i do.. its doubtfull i'll be using
this program that long anyway and there will be a new, " version 6 " soon
enough i hope!
just one thing left which i didnt mention above, when in the ASM code i found
another string data reference ;
"there is a newer version of paintshop pro do you want to goto the web site and download it?"
hahah - no i dont think so guys & gals (not yet anyway)
they ju$t love people downloading there product dont they.
this box pops up as soon as the program starts, a simple case of changing
a je to a jne fixes this minor annoyance, the change is very obvious so if
you want this program you will have to find it yourself,
actually you should do it yourself anyway just for the fun of it!
thanx for yur time
ether