Skinng / Protection Problems

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   Hello,

I have a really bad problem. I need to protect my software against cracking. I evaluate now a few solutions and I have in most cases the problem, that my software will not work well after protect.

After talk to 2 companies I know now that Codejock skinning is the problem. Codejock overrides some Windows API by  modifiying the import table of the file. Protection software  uses its own import table, so Codejock's code

doesn't get called at all.

I use the codejock libs in a dialog based app, compiled with static linked librarys, unicode. I use the Vista skin. 

Please give me a solution how to avoid this problems. Protection is a really important issue.

Thanks,

Ingo

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Ocrana Members Profile Send Private Message Find Members Posts Add to Buddy List Groupie Joined: 20 November 2007 Status: Offline Points: 32	Post Options Post Reply Quote Ocrana Report Post Thanks(0) Quote Reply Topic: Skinng / Protection Problems Posted: 15 February 2010 at 4:04pm
	Hello, I have a really bad problem. I need to protect my software against cracking. I evaluate now a few solutions and I have in most cases the problem, that my software will not work well after protect. After talk to 2 companies I know now that Codejock skinning is the problem. Codejock overrides some Windows API by modifiying the import table of the file. Protection software uses its own import table, so Codejock's code doesn't get called at all. I use the codejock libs in a dialog based app, compiled with static linked librarys, unicode. I use the Vista skin. Please give me a solution how to avoid this problems. Protection is a really important issue. Thanks, Ingo

znakeeye Members Profile Send Private Message Find Members Posts Add to Buddy List Senior Member Joined: 26 July 2006 Status: Offline Points: 1672	Post Options Post Reply Quote znakeeye Report Post Thanks(0) Quote Reply Posted: 16 February 2010 at 8:46am
	If you want to use the skin engine you must disable API-wrapping in the protector.
	PokerMemento - http://www.pokermemento.com/

mitcheljh Members Profile Send Private Message Find Members Posts Add to Buddy List Groupie Joined: 20 July 2008 Location: United States Status: Offline Points: 35	Post Options Post Reply Quote mitcheljh Report Post Thanks(0) Quote Reply Posted: 16 February 2010 at 11:07am
	I agree with znakeeye. I also use a popular software protection application to wrap my own exe, and the skinning works fine with API-wrapping turned off in the protector. My own application uses advanced skinning features in ToolkitPro, and it has no problems with the protection. If you still have problems after turning off the API-wrapping, you might want to check where you initially apply skinning to your app. Changing this around seemed to fix a couple issues for me.

Marco1 Members Profile Send Private Message Find Members Posts Add to Buddy List Senior Member Joined: 16 January 2004 Location: Germany Status: Offline Points: 251	Post Options Post Reply Quote Marco1 Report Post Thanks(0) Quote Reply Posted: 16 February 2010 at 11:43am
	I had some similar problems with a third party printing engine. Calling XTPSkinManager()->SetAutoApplyNewWindows(FALSE) before invoking the engine fixed it. After printing, reenabling starts skinning again. Perhaps you can do the same with the protection module.

Ocrana Members Profile Send Private Message Find Members Posts Add to Buddy List Groupie Joined: 20 November 2007 Status: Offline Points: 32	Post Options Post Reply Quote Ocrana Report Post Thanks(0) Quote Reply Posted: 17 February 2010 at 6:26pm
	I do not write here about basic software protection like the nerd tools you can buy for less than 100 USD. I write about real software protection with memory manipulation protection and more deeper technologies. For me currently it is hard to understand why it works with Codejock dynamic linked and do not work wit CodeJock static linked.

mitcheljh Members Profile Send Private Message Find Members Posts Add to Buddy List Groupie Joined: 20 July 2008 Location: United States Status: Offline Points: 35	Post Options Post Reply Quote mitcheljh Report Post Thanks(0) Quote Reply Posted: 17 February 2010 at 6:56pm
	I didn't realize you could purchase decent protection for under 100 USD. Mine was well over that, from a very reputable protection company, and I'm guessing the same for those others who replied.

Ocrana Members Profile Send Private Message Find Members Posts Add to Buddy List Groupie Joined: 20 November 2007 Status: Offline Points: 32	Post Options Post Reply Quote Ocrana Report Post Thanks(0) Quote Reply Posted: 17 February 2010 at 8:52pm
	sorry, but "to wrap" is no low level protection. So I assume you wrote about common "wrapper/packer". However, I do not want to discuss any "protection" issues or software specific settings. I need information about the problem I wrote about. It will be great whether a CodeJock member will say something about this problem. Cause I need to know where the problem is.

znakeeye Members Profile Send Private Message Find Members Posts Add to Buddy List Senior Member Joined: 26 July 2006 Status: Offline Points: 1672	Post Options Post Reply Quote znakeeye Report Post Thanks(0) Quote Reply Posted: 18 February 2010 at 5:13am
	Like I said, you must not enable API-wrapper protection for the codejock skinning engine. So if you leave the skinning code in the unprotected DLL, it will work. When linking statically, the skinning code is inside your exe - which is later protected. This is not an error at all. Just a conflict. If you cannot disable the API-wrapper in the protector, then don't link statically! Or even better, choose a protector that is capable of that. Sure, you'd get a decrease in protection when disabling API-wrapping, but... most crackers are not fooled for a second by those tricks anyway.
	PokerMemento - http://www.pokermemento.com/

Ocrana Members Profile Send Private Message Find Members Posts Add to Buddy List Groupie Joined: 20 November 2007 Status: Offline Points: 32	Post Options Post Reply Quote Ocrana Report Post Thanks(0) Quote Reply Posted: 18 February 2010 at 9:27am
	"most crackers are not fooled for a second by those tricks anyway" .....is the worst comment I ever read. I can not take you seriously. It is really a joke why people will comment things, they have no experience with. To say: Disable protection to use the CodeJock libs is amazing. And I do not think that this is the official statement of CodeJock.

mitcheljh Members Profile Send Private Message Find Members Posts Add to Buddy List Groupie Joined: 20 July 2008 Location: United States Status: Offline Points: 35	Post Options Post Reply Quote mitcheljh Report Post Thanks(0) Quote Reply Posted: 18 February 2010 at 9:33am
	Ocrana, We are just offering you our own experiences in this matter. So far, it seems that all three responses have been pretty much in agreement. In my own experiences, API-wrapping is just one of over a dozen techniques used by most of the better software protection solutions. Disabling this one technique will not have that big of an effect if you leave all the other techniques enabled. You claim that your software protection solution is a higher priced (and I'm assuming, higher quality) solution, so it should offer many more techniques than just API-wrapping. I believe if you search this forum, you will find the same question asked, and the same answer given.

Ocrana Members Profile Send Private Message Find Members Posts Add to Buddy List Groupie Joined: 20 November 2007 Status: Offline Points: 32	Post Options Post Reply Quote Ocrana Report Post Thanks(0) Quote Reply Posted: 18 February 2010 at 9:54am
	mitcheljh, " I write about real software protection with memory manipulation protection" ..... I wrote before. A clear statement of my own, so why discuss further things that do not allow this?

znakeeye Members Profile Send Private Message Find Members Posts Add to Buddy List Senior Member Joined: 26 July 2006 Status: Offline Points: 1672	Post Options Post Reply Quote znakeeye Report Post Thanks(0) Quote Reply Posted: 19 February 2010 at 2:01pm
	"those tricks" referred to "API wrapping" - something that your protection should NOT rely 100% on (and YES, a cracker is NOT fooled by an API-wrapper itself). Sorry for not being accurate. So YES, you DISABLE 5% of the protection to get the skinning engine working. NO, this is NOT the official statement of Codejock. Try their support! Or even better; try the support of the protection software. Your comment "is the worst comment I ever read. I can not take you seriously." merely indicates that you have no idea of what you are talking about.
	PokerMemento - http://www.pokermemento.com/