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HOW TO MODIFY OR EDIT .EXE FILE

how to edit .exe extentionHave you ever in some point thought of modifying a software or any .EXE extension, but don’t know how and what tool to use? You don’t have the necessary skills to perform such action? Hey! Who said you need skill to play with things?

With what I am about to show you right now, you can modify any .EXE extension without a programmer skill and trust me it won’t corrupt the program.

NOTE: Don’t try to modify a program by editing his source in a dissasembler. Do you want to know why?

Dissasemblers are for programmers and assembly experts only. If try to view it in hex editor you will only get tons of codes you don’t understand.

First off, what you need as a novice is Resource Hacker (last version). It is a resource editor and is very easy to use.

Resource Hacker Version 3.4.0 can be downloaded here… ResHack.zip

2. Unzip the archive to a folder, and run ResHacker.exe

3. You will see that the interface is simple and clean. Go to the menu File\Open or press Ctrl + O to open a file. Browse your way to the file you would like to edit.

You can edit .exe, .dll, .ocx, .scr and .cpl files, but this tutorial is meant to teach you how to edit  .exe files, so open one.

4. In the left side of the screen a list of sections will appear.

The most common sections are: -Icon;

-String table;

-RCData;

-Dialog;

-Cursor group;

-Bitmap;

-WAV.

*Icon: You can view and change the icon(s) of the program by double-clicking the icon section, choosing the icon, right-clicking on it an pressing “replace resource”. After that you can choose the icon you want to replace the original with.

*String table: a bunch of crap, useful sometimes, basic programming knowledge needed.

*RCData: Here the real hacking begins. Modify window titles, buttons, text, and lots more!

*Dialog: Here you can modify the messages or dialogs that appear in a program. Don’t forget to press “Compile” when you’re done!

*Cursor group: Change the mouse cursors used in the program just like you would change the icon.

*Bitmap: View or change images in the programs easy!

*WAV: Change the sounds in the program with your own.

5) In the RCData, Dialog, Menu and String table sections you can do a lot of changes. You can modify or translate the text change links, change buttons, etc.

TIPS: To change a window title, search for something like: CAPTION “edit this”.

After all operations, press the “Compile Script” button, and when you’re done editing save your work @ File\Save (Save as).

When you save a file, the original file will be backed up by default and renamed to Name_original and the saved file will have the normal name of the changed program.

Sometimes you may get a message like: “This program has a non-standard resource layout… it has probably been compressed with an .EXE compressor.” That means that Resource Hacker can’t modify it because of its structure.

Remember! This is only a small example of what you can do to executables with Resource Hacker. You can play with it to know your way round it more…

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