Question: Opening 15MB-EXE file in W32DASM

[ivanov]

Hi all,

I have an EXE file with 15 MB in size. I can disassemble it using W32DASM and the output is about 250MB (*.ALF). Problem is, I cannot trace down (jump, return, etc) the codes since the lines position not in order. It seems W32DASM cannot handle large files. Now, I use UltraEdit to open ALF file. Any hint could solve this problem?

Thanks!

[peleon]

Why dont you move to IDA?

I think that we, the beginners, should spend much time with IDA cos it's really powerful even if for the beginner's eyes, W32DASM looks the solution against disassembly (that's far from the truth )

Regards.

also if you dont like ida... why dont u use ollydbg? im sure that the code you get from olly is as good as the one from w32dasm .

I also like w32dasm and it was my favorite disassembler for a while however because it is no longer in development it is a bit old and struggles with many executables today. OllyDbg (as suggested by Eggi) is a good alternative and the debugger/disassembler I use now. It takes a little while to get used to but it's well worth the effort.

i think you should stick to olly, because ....
... olly gives you a better stringref than wdasm (sometimes wdasm did not list some strings.. olly did)
... olly is faster
... sometimes wdasm killed itself ( cos of some weird anti wdasm code )

this is why i do not use wdasm anymore ...
i tried ida a few weeks ago .. its nice (cos it can also handle different filetypes like linux executables, winpe, ....) but its not easy to work with it cos there are so damn much functions/options...

[ivanov]

for me w32dasm is easier and often used, and ofcourse Olly and IDA also important. i just want to know if there is no trick or patch to fix this size problem in w32dasm?

[WhoCares]

Simply forget W32Dasm. There is no future for such a prog without further development.

W32Dasm is, as others have already astutely pointed out, no longer under development. It is readily confused/attacked by basic anti-debugging tricks; IDA is far more resistant to such techniques. Wishful thinking, perhaps, but I don't think you'll ever get it to work the way you want it to.