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Cracking .Msi Files by MMHCKB For Ret

This document provides instructions for cracking the license validation in Windows MSI installation files by modifying the installation script. It describes using Filemon to find any InstallShield script files, and if none are found, using Wise to edit the MSI file directly. Specifically, it explains changing the condition that checks the serial number to always be true, bypassing the license validation.

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Bala Ratnakar Koneru
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158 views

Cracking .Msi Files by MMHCKB For Ret

This document provides instructions for cracking the license validation in Windows MSI installation files by modifying the installation script. It describes using Filemon to find any InstallShield script files, and if none are found, using Wise to edit the MSI file directly. Specifically, it explains changing the condition that checks the serial number to always be true, bypassing the license validation.

Uploaded by

Bala Ratnakar Koneru
Copyright
© Attribution Non-Commercial (BY-NC)
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
Available Formats
Download as PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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Cracking .

msi Files By mMhCkB for RET


Tools required: Wise for Windows Installer Filemon (Optional) Today, we are discussing how to bypass serial number protections built in to windows binary installer files (.msi). Commonly, registration number protections are embedded within an InstallShield script, so we are going to make sure this is not the case before we delve into the .msi file. If the installer is only a .msi file, or rather, if there is no .exe installer within the package, skip the entire filemon/inx hunting procedure. Start Filemon and add setup.exe:*; (or whatever the name of your installer exe is) into the include list of the filter and hit ok.

Run your setup exe until you reach the screen which asks for you to input the serial number. Back in filemon, hit the capture button.

Edit->Find. Search for .inx and .ins . Those are the file extensions for InstallShield script files. Commonly, you can skip the filemon procedure and find it directly by looking in your temp folder, but not always. You can access the temp folder by going to Start -> Run: %temp% snoop around there and you may find an InstallShield script file. If a script file is found, odds are the protection lies within the script file and you can close this tut right now, if not, continue on.

If you skipped the filemon step, continue from here: Alright, on to the .msi cracking. In our standard generic example, the .msi installer loads, yet refuses to install until a valid serial number is entered into an input box. We need to bypass this. Load up Wise for Windows Installer. File, Open, choose your .msi file. It will ask you if you wish to convert the .msi file to a .wsi wise installer file. Choose yes. Choose your source directory (doesnt matter what you pick, when were done, well delete it) and hit ok. Keep hitting next until it pops up and says the directory youre trying to use doesnt exist and if you want to create it, hit yes and continue. Wise will proceed to decompile your .msi file. 1. In the lower left, hit the Setup Editor tab. 2. Up top, hit the Dialogs tab.

On the left bar, click down through the different dialogs until you find the one which contains the serial number input box.

Double click on the next button, and it will bring up items properties window.

So, when you hit that next button, it calls a function called CheckSerialNo with the condition set to 1. The condition set to one means, always true, thus, it will always perform this check. You can think of this similar to an infinite loop you might write in C that looks something like: While(1) blah; After the CheckSerialNo call, it moves on to the next event. The event is a NewDialog (Proceeding on to the next screen instead of saying bad serial), which calls the dialog named LicenseAgreement. The condition is set to InstallApp = YES. Apparently, in the CheckSerialNo function, it sets a variable called InstallApp equal to YES if its a valid serial and NO if the serial is invalid. So, basically, it would move to the next dialog if the CheckSerialNo function had set InstallApp equal to YES, unfortunately, since we dont have a real serial number, this isnt the case. So, in order to fix this, double click on the New Dialog line.

Change the condition to 1, so it is always true, and hit ok.

Weve now successfully recoded our .msi file to accept any serial entered. All that is left is to recompile it. So, hit the Compile button down in the lower right. Go to the directory you originally chose to use and inside should be your new .msi file. If the original installer used a .cab file, there will also be a new .cab file in this directory, which has the same filename as the .msi. Copy these two (or one if no cab file was used) files to the original installation file folder overwriting the old .msi file and the old .cab file. Run your installer and enjoy entering any serial number that you wish. Greetings to: pale, zero, the rest of the nts guys, everyone in ret, everyone else I talk to regularly and all the other guys out there who make the 0day scene a competition. mM

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