SICE Driver Suite and Win XP
 

Anyone know how to get Softice (the version in the Driver Suite 2.6) to work correctly with Win XP.
There used to be a thread here with all the problems poeple were having (i.e. SICE not stopping at WinMain, certain BP's not working, back tracing problems, etc.).
Has anyone figured out how to get it to work correctly (without the above mentioned problems) with XP yet?

NE1
 

Just noticed I had message board settings only showing topics from last 30 days, thus I missed a bunch on stuff on this subject. Anyway, I am going look through some of the older threads and try some of the suggestions given.
BTW: In my case, version 4.05 with XP Patch, and DS2.6 do not work correctly.
It might be helpful if people who actaully got it to work correctly could post what version of Windows they are using (Professional, Corporate, etc.), and what type of processor they have (Intel, AMD, etc), so maybe we can see if there is something common there.

OK, using info from some of the other posts here, I uninstalled DS 2.6, installed the Microsoft DDK, and Symbol files, ran the debugger from the ddk and then reinstalled DS 2.6. Nothing has changed, Softice still has same problems as before. Can someone explain exactly what Softice actually needs. With previous Windows OS's, I never needed the DDK, or symbol files. I just use Softice for application level debugging and not device driver stuff. Is the DDK or Symbol files needed for this type of debugging? The only thing I saw in the DDK that looked like it might affect Softice settings was the global flags settings, and I tried many different settings without resolving the problems with Softice. What exactly am I supposed to do with the DDK, other than installing it?

have u tried the ds2.6 patch yet?

No, I have not seen any DS 2.6 patches? Where is this patch you speak of?

almost forgotten
 

try to search same topic in RCE:
hxxp://fraviamb.cjb.net/

there's one patch to download. hope it solved the problem down.

the patch is also available in these forums, and many web sites
search and ye shall find

h**p://w*w.exetools.com/forum/showthread.php?s=&threadid=782&highlight=softice

R@dier

R@dier, that patch you are talking about is for Softice 4.05 for NT, and that is not the version that comes with DS 2.6, and I allready stated that neither Softice 4.05 for NT with the XP Patch, nor DS 2.6 (Softice version 4.2.6 build 922) works for me. Dion, is this the same patch the you are talking about? The only other patches I saw (on the message board you mentioned), was anti Softice detection patches. Although they say they are for DS 2.6, they are not related to the problem I am having. A lot of poeple were having this same issue, has anyone that had this issue (specifically with DS 2.6 and Windows XP, not Win 2000 or 98 or ME, and not SICE 4.05), been able to get it working?

NE1 :

Try to search!!!

I found this in less then a minute,
I used this on DS2.6 running on XP

h**p://w*w.exetools.com/forum/showthread.php s=&threadid=527&highlight=softice

there are also many other sources available on the web

Allright R@dier, lets get this straight. I know how to search and have searched and searched (and have seen that same patch and others like it in my searches). Once again the patch you are speaking of is for Softice 4.05 for NT, and just for the hell of it, I did try it, even though it is an older version of the softice componenets then what comes with DS 2.6, and guess what, it didn't help, so please, no more Softice 4.05 patches. If it worked for you, I am glad, but instead of saying "try searching", you should have said try the version 4.05 patch, and that it worked for you. Otherwise, it sounds like there is a 2.6 patch around somewhere that I am not seeing, when in fact there isn't. Anyway, don't get me wrong, I do appreciate the help, I am just getting frustrated, as I have not been able to use Softice since installing XP (been a long time now), and have tried a zillion different things trying to get it to work. (and I do know how to use Softice, I have used it on Win95, 98, ME, and NT 4.0, so it not a case of newbie mistakes... just to get that out of the way as well)

NE1,

calm down you're not the only1 frustrated about this. If you look around there are about 15,219 threads about ppl having problems about SI on XP. Though I'm far from beeing a NT kernel expert neither a debug registers guru it's most likely a sw conflict and there's really NO PATCH available afaik.

Wait for next ver.

yeah..my grama say it thoo

"my sweetheart, if u need biggest/largest/.. errection - u must use a SICE (my grama hate luitaotao :) with Win98 only!

i think its true..when i erase W2k/XP and start using SICE+Win98 i lost my depressions and fixup some psychical problems like sexual disfunction, frustration, apathic mind and chaotic talking (not 100% fixed yet)

trust me..
_____________
send this message to 20 lamers and we enlarge ur penis
� 2002 NuMega Corp. Help Desk

lol :)

Hopefully DS 2.7 will fix it once and for all. I am just sick of waiting. First it was wait for the 4.05 patch, then DS 2.5, then DS 2.6, none of which worked... now waiting for DS 2.7

One option that I just started using is to install Connectix Virtual PC v5, better then sliced bread, load win98 with virtual pc and you will be back to using softice in no time. I am running XP as the host machine and switching to 98 just takes a second. Very nice product.

Hmmm, I tried Virtual PC a ways back, and Softice would not work in it. I can't remember which guest OS I used or which version of Softice I used at the time at the time, but it wouldn't work. I didn't play with it all the much, because I just figured it would not run in a VM. What guest OS are you using and which version of Softice? Maybe I will give a try again if you say it works. I agree Virtual PC is a nice product, and I still use it to play around with other OS's without having to re-partition my hard drive, etc (currently running Mandrake Linux 8.2 as a guest OS). Only problem is that it is a bit slow. I also have VMware which is similair, but I like Virtual PC more.

NE1 Switch ro Windows 2000 Much Better Than XP :D

I suppose I could dual boot with 2000 if I had to. Couldn't do it with 98 as I am using ntfs.

IMHO you don't need XP at all just use 2k

Ne1
Host OS is XP and guest is 98se. Using Softice driver suite 2.6, works like a charm on virtual pc v 5.0.

raven:
Nice suggestion, I have given it a go and
It works great, Thanks :D
It does get a bit unstable at times tho'
and the keyboard will not work properly sometimes,
other then that it is nice to have hmemcpy back again :D

Have you had any trouble with the keyboard playin up?


Regards

R@dier

tell me exactly what breakpoints are not working with ds2.6. i have had issues with some but it seems all of them were solved as i configured softice to start BEFORE windows (winXp service pack level 0) instead of net start.

There used to be a list here of many the breakpoints, etc. that were not working. It has been a while since then, thus I do not remember. People would have to post them again to get a good list (there was even some good work arounds listed for some of the problems). The most obvious problem is that Softice does not stop at Winmain, even though it is configured correctly in Symbol Loader. Have tried all suggestions I could find, and all start up modes for softice, and nothing worked. I seem to remember MessageBoxW being a problem, where Softice would just ignore the breakpoint. Also, I remember that Backtracing didn't work (but someone had a workaround for it, that did work, can't remember what it was though). The other problem with the breakpoints was that it wasn't always straight forward which ones worked and which ones didn't work, as occasionally the breakpoint might work. Anyway, I don't remember the rest of them. BTW: When I tested them, I was using code that I wrote myself in Win32 Asm, and thus I knew for a fact what API calls I was using, and thus knew for sure that Softice was ignoring the breakpoints I set on those API calls. As I stated before, I did try all the different startup modes for Softice (plus troubleshooting modes), including having it startup at boot, and it didn't work for me, so I would guess that, if you had these same problems, and have it working now, that it was something else that you did to fix it (I wish I knew what that is). I believe that when I first tried using DS2.6, that I had a clean install of Win XP (has been a while now), but as it stands now, I have SP0, with many SP1 hotfixes installed from the Windows Update site, so that is probably just adding to the problems.

MessageBoxW is for unicode, do you directly work with unicode in asm? I remember simple MessageBox working all the times, also breakpoints on memory range access and on windows messages, after I switch to boot start. Didn't try other ones. I don't understand this winmain thing, do you mean like debugging with compiler generated symbol files for your own application or just breakpoint on entry point?
I didn't do anything to this ds2.6 installation, I used to try those patches posted, but when I compared found out that one of the patches contains identical files that come with ds2.6, and another one has the same files older than original ds2.6, so I just stick with original ones and tried boot before windows instead. I'm not 100% sure if it works for every case, possibly not but seems to have solved problem with bpx and bpmsg. I didn't update my winxp though as far as I can remember,none of hotfixes installed here.

As for the Winmain thing, it is an option in the symbol loader under Settings > Debugging > Stop at WinMain, Main, DllMain, etc., and basically makes Softice break at the programs entry point (when loaded through the symbol loader), etc.

As for the MessageboxW. The code I was writing was grabbing info from another NT application and required its use. Many NT apps use unicode and the related API calls.

In any case, there are other breakpoints that were not working as well (ones that are more useful than MessageBox, I only mentioned that one because it was one that I remebered did not work with certainty), that other people had posted, I just can't remember which ones they were.

It just makes it that much harder to find that specific part of the code you are looking for, (particulairly when reversing something), when that one bp you really need is ignored by softice. You end up having to do a lot more deadlisting of the program, rather than debugging. Those of us that currently have this problem, and are just working around it (rather than installing another OS), know what I mean, and any newbies that are just trying to learn how to use Softice, etc, and are following a tutorial or something, and it is not working... Well you can see the problems there.

I forgot to mention Windows Messages You said that it works for you, but I haven't been able to to use those bp's myself. For example:
BMSG XXXXXX WM_GETTEXT
I wasn't sure if it was another Softice problem, or maybe something changed in XP and I am just not doing it right.
Do you know the answer to that?