Database Users

How to DLL hook in windows CE?

How to DLL hook in windows CE?
for example how to hook RIL_Dial in ril.dll?

the process is nearly similar to normal Windows. For example you can make a wrapper around the dll, or patch its export table, or import table of app that uses it. Read cracking sites for more info.

Thanks for replay.
I need a sample code for used fast.

But WinCE does not support SetWindowHook and CreateRemoteThread (at least I cannot find it in the SDK help)
We can use VirtualProtect to change API entry but I cannot enter address space of other process.
that means we can hook API within our program only we cannot implement interprocess API interception like under win32 platform.
Writting a wrapper for API is too tough for big DLLs with hundreds of APIs.
Patching export table in binary file is impossible for system DLLs in the ROM.
headache

SetWindowsHook is obsolete. Use SetWindowsHookEx.
There is no need to use CreateRemoteThread. All processes in CE share the same 4Gb linear address space and can access each other's data. To convert a pointer from your or any other processes' address to a "global" that can be accessed from everywhere use a poorly docummented function:
Code:
extern"C" LPVOID MapPtrToProcess(LPVOID lpv, HANDLE hProc);
To inject DLL into address space of other process I use
Code:
typedef struct _CALLBACKINFO {
HANDLE hProc; /* destination process */
FARPROC pfn; /* function to call in dest. process */
PVOID pvArg0; /* arg0 data */
} CALLBACKINFO;
typedef CALLBACKINFO *PCALLBACKINFO;
extern"C" DWORD PerformCallBack4(CALLBACKINFO *pcbi,...);
...
HANDLE Proc=OpenProcess(0,0,Pid);
void *Ptr=MapPtrToProcess(L"phonehook.dll",GetCurrentProcess());
CALLBACKINFO ci;
ci.hProc=Proc;
void *t=GetProcAddress(GetModuleHandle(L"coredll.dll"),L"LoadLibraryW");
ci.pfn=(FARPROC)MapPtrToProcess(t,Proc);
ci.pvArg0=Ptr;
PerformCallBack4(&ci);
CloseHandle(Proc);
The method is unstable - it can hang your device if the process was inside an API function. I call Sleep(500) before PerformCallBack4 and it works in most cases.
The other metod that allows hooking of most kernel functions is patching the SystemAPISets table. Search this forum, an example was posted here.

I Understand attach dll to other process but no Understand to change the original function adress to my hook function .
for example in hook dll write this code
Code:
typedef HRESULT t_RIL_Dial(HRIL hRil, LPCSTR lpszAddress, DWORD dwType, DWORD dwOptions);
HRESULT New_RIL_Dial(HRIL hRil, LPCSTR lpszAddress, DWORD dwType, DWORD dwOptions);
t_RIL_Dial *Old_RIL_Dial;
HINSTANCE hRilDll = LoadLibrary(L"\\Windows\\Ril.Dll");
Old_RIL_Dial = (t_RIL_Dial*)GetProcAddress(hRilDll, L"RIL_Dial");
and my hook function
Code:
HRESULT New_RIL_Dial(HRIL hRil, LPCSTR lpszAddress, DWORD dwType, DWORD dwOptions)
{
// hook code
}
how to change the Old_RIL_Dial to New_RIL_Dial.
please help me.

Cannot give you a simple code to demonstrate it. You must have knowledge of assembly language and how win32 system works.
in breif,
1. use system hook to enter other process
2. get entry address of API
3. change protection type of that address
5. save that value
4. replace that address with your function and a long jmp
5. in your function, write that value back and call original API and replace that address again.
6. Use interprocess communication APIs.
7. keep multi-thread safe and be very careful
I think SetWindowsHookEx is not a documented API in win CE sdk/MSDN.

This isn't anything like regular win32 hooking. Because WINCE uses XIP technology.
Since rill.dll and rilgsm.dll are XIP dll's, they're executed directly from ROM. Without being loaded to RAM. Therefore, it is not possible to patch those modules "on the fly" and insert a jump/hook because ROM is read only.
Correct me if I'm wrong?

This isn't anything like regular win32 hooking. Because WINCE uses XIP technology.
Since rill.dll and rilgsm.dll are XIP dll's, they're executed directly from ROM. Without being loaded to RAM. Therefore, it is not possible to patch those modules "on the fly" and insert a jump/hook because ROM is read only.
Correct me if I'm wrong?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
this is true only sometimes:
modern devices usual have in ROM only 5-10 files (example Dell x51v)
Also if ROM code section is compressed, it will be decompressed to RAM at first.
XIP is eXecution In Place, so all above can't be called XIP.

Automate Multiple CAB installation

Okay after a few hours of searching and fiddling I got this to work out...but it still needs improvement.
I followed some details from:
http://www.gpcarreon.com/?p=291
So basically you get this and install it:
http://nsis.sourceforge.net/Download
Then create a folder at root level (i.e. C:\MyInstall)
In that folder place the following files:
All the .cab files (which you obtain like locked extended ROM files)
All .ini files (which you create)
T-Mobile Customization.nsi (which you download from below)
In the Above mentioned nsi script I have allocated 20 spaces, however you can add/remove lines as needed. Don't forget to increment the following fields:
“FILE 1"
SecFile1
SectionIn 1
File 1.ini
File 1.CAB
StrCpy $0 “$INSTDIR\1.ini”
I didn't change it in my file, however if you want to change File 1 to another name make sure you're consistent so all reference to 1 would change to your file name. Capice?
Now for your cab files depending on how many lines/cabs you have your basic format for your cab file will look like this:
[CEAppManager]
Version = 1.0
Component = 1
[1]
Description = MT-MMS-WI19-051213-1 [MMS]
Uninstall = MT-MMS-WI19-051213-1 [MMS]
CabFiles = 1.cab
Where Component is the name from the "File 1" and the [1] matches the component name. Description and Uninstall as far as I can tell can be whatever you like. And CabFiles must be the cab files name, in this case 1.cab (which reflects in the nsi file)
The file name for the ini must also be the same as you specified. File1.ini
After you have done all this save your script, cabs, and inis in the folder at the root level. And then right click on the script and choose compile! If you successfully compiled the script you should see an option to "Test Installer" and you will also a new executable file generated.
Now for the problem part where I seek your assistance As I mentioned before I'm a rookie when it comes to this stuff so I haven't the slightest clue where I would begin. But if you do use this method it's quite annoying to have to pause every two seconds to wait for the device to prompt you where to install it and for you to acknowledge successful installation. So what I'm thinking is how do I make it "silent" meaning it automatically installs to the "Device" and does not say "successful installation press ok to continue..." I was thinking this would be done in the ini file for each of the cabs, however I do not know. Anyone else know what can be done in this matter.
Thanks in advance...hopefully this will help someone....

mousio's AutoRun

[ Based on plenTpak's already great AutoInstall4 (2008/03/28) ]
The scripts included here require MortScript and are intended to help automatically install and configure software, copy files and folders, and import registry and provisioning stuff - this all with little or no user interaction!
So should you need to install a new ROM or install new software versions, just go ahead and let User Customization take care of the rest...
Usage:
Unpack SDConfig.txt and scripts to storage card (and review them )
Dump any install files (silently installable only!), script files (e.g. to process the interactive install files, see further), registry files, provisioning files, and files and folders to copy, into the AutoRun subfolder.
Hard-reset, or start the RunAutoRun script
Hope this makes things easier for some people!
By default, it uses this file structure:
Code:
_ Storage Card\
|_ SDConfig.txt
|_ SDConfig\
|_ <MortScript cab>
|_ AutoWait.mscr
|_ AutoRun.mscr
|_ AutoRun\
|_ <your stuff here>
I rarely need to change my SDConfig file anymore and I just drop all of my AutoRun stuff (cab/mscr/zip/reg/xml files and also regular files and folders) in the dedicated AutoRun folder, it's that easy!
The AutoRun folder may contain any or all of the following:
cab files to install silently and mscr scripts to run,
regular files/folders to copy,
zip archives to unpack,
reg files to import,
xml files to concatenate.
All is processed (and logged!) in the same order as listed above, with all items sorted alphabetically first.
After installing, files are copied/unpacked, then registry files are imported, and finally the xml files are concatenated into a single provisioning file that is called by SDConfig.txt.
Here are some important notes for each item:
I use scripts to install the more interactive cabs: e.g. instead of putting Fringcab.cab here, I put a Fringcab.mscr here, and move Fringcab.cab elsewhere (i.e. a sibling folder called "Interactive"); my Fringcab.mscr installs Fringcab.cab but then also takes care of the interactive installation part of it.
The "regular" files are files that do not fit the other categories (cab/mscr/zip/reg/xml); regular files/folders found here will be xcopied to the root folder on the device (creating folder structure if necessary) - quite like plenTpak explained here.
Zip archives are unpacked to the root folder on the device (creating folder structure if necessary); zip archives are smaller to store, but unpacking is less tolerant than xcopying when it comes down to read-only or system files and such...
Not thoroughly tested the registry import since I use xml files for registry changes also; if I recall correctly from my brief testing, I believe the reg file should not be unicode for the script to be able to parse it correctly, so mind the encoding!
A provisioning file is always generated, so that SDConfig does not fail on a missing file.
About the AutoWait script: see here and here. To summarize roughly: 1 AutoWait call is needed for each full 3-minute block that your AutoRun requires to run. Apart from extra run time, it will not do any harm to add extra AutoWait calls to your SDConfig file.
Remark: The AutoRun script can take a parameter to use a custom sibling folder instead of the default AutoRun folder (e.g. a folder "Games"), but I failed to pass that parameter directly from SDConfig. However, yet another script can take care of that, as follows:
create a script for each custom folder (e.g. a script "Games.mscr"), with the following contents:
Code:
CallScript( SystemPath("ScriptPath") \ "AutoWait.mscr" )
CallScript( SystemPath("ScriptPath") \ "AutoRun.mscr", SystemPath("ScriptName"), "^NL^^NL^ processing " & SystemPath("ScriptName"), & "..." )
adapt the SDConfig.txt file to copy and call the new script(s) just created (which in turn will call the original AutoRun script, so do not forget about AutoWait here too!)
A RunAutoRun script is also included in the zip file, to test the SDConfig/AutoRun without hard-resetting your device.
Personally, I use MortScript-4.11b7-PPC.cab and these scripts together with ROMS using SDAutorun v2.0 - and I only have my Trinity to use it on.
Main related links:
MortScript
AutoInstall4
User Customization
SDAutoRun v2.0
Use all at your own risk!

[ reserved ]
The script does not check if it is run manually or automatically, nor does it check the mortscript version it runs with, nor does it actively try to avoid double installation of mortscript, but feel free to post your own code to include these interesting features. Another feature could be to automatically detect the name of the storage card root folder in order to support different languages...

thank you mousio tested with xml, cabs, and folder/files.. very good

Great idea! Automating the automated process of SDAutoRun!

Taking the automated process to next level . AWESOME!!! . you developers are not going to let me get me out of cooking frenzy

The script does not check if it is run manually or automatically, nor does it check the mortscript version it runs with, nor does it actively try to avoid double installation of mortscript, but feel free to post your own code to include these interesting features. Another feature could be to automatically detect the name of the storage card root folder in order to support different languages...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
If I can find some spare time for this...

Thanks for this tool!
I've only got one issue with it, and that is AutoWait related. It seems that after 6 minutes (I'm installing a lot of cabs), SDAutorun continues to execute the rest of SDConfig.txt, it complains about a missing AutoRun.xml (as the AutoRun.mscr hasn't generated it yet), then the device hangs.
Reading your instructions, it seemed that the solution would be to add more lines of EXEC:\Temp\AutoWait.mscr to the SDConfig.txt, but this appeared to have no effect at all!
If there is any other possible solution for dealing with long-running scripts, I'd love to hear it.
Alex

Would splitting them up into sub scripts work better?
Cuts down the time for each script, but may be more complex.

mousio said:
If I can find some spare time for this...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Here is the code that seems to work for me with regard to StorageCard location for international people.
Code:
# STORAGE CARD PATH
Sub StorageCardLogic
If (Length(RegRead("HKLM","System\StorageManager\Profiles\SDMemory","Folder")) > 0)
StorageCardPath = "\" & RegRead("HKLM","System\StorageManager\Profiles\SDMemory","Folder")
ElseIf (Length(RegRead("HKLM","System\StorageManager\Profiles\SDMMC","Folder")) > 0)
StorageCardPath = "\" & RegRead("HKLM","System\StorageManager\Profiles\SDMMC","Folder")
ElseIf (Length(RegRead("HKLM","System\StorageManager\Profiles\PCMCIA","Folder")) > 0)
StorageCardPath = "\" & RegRead("HKLM","System\StorageManager\Profiles\PCMCIA","Folder")
EndIf
EndSub

Storage Card logic
Long time no post
Based on several sources, including yours, this is now similar to what is in my latest version:
Code:
RegStorageCard1 = RegRead( "HKLM", "System\StorageManager\Profiles\SDMemory", "Folder" )
RegStorageCard2 = RegRead( "HKLM", "System\StorageManager\Profiles\SDMMC", "Folder" )
RegStorageCard3 = RegRead( "HKLM", "System\StorageManager\Profiles\PCMCIA", "Folder" )
RegInternalStorage = RegRead( "HKLM", "System\StorageManager\Profiles\moviNAND", "Folder" )
RegAutoPart1 = RegRead( "HKLM", "System\StorageManager\Profiles\moviNAND", "AutoPart" )
RegAutoPart2 = RegRead( "HKLM", "System\StorageManager\Profiles\moviNAND\FATFS", "AutoPart" )
If( RegAutoPart1 = 1 || RegAutoPart2 = 1 )
storagecard = "\" \ RegInternalStorage
ElseIf( NOT IsEmpty( RegStorageCard1 ) )
storagecard = "\" \ RegStorageCard1
ElseIf( NOT IsEmpty( RegStorageCard2 ) )
storagecard = "\" \ RegStorageCard2
ElseIf( NOT IsEmpty( RegStorageCard3 ) )
storagecard = "\" \ RegStorageCard3
Else
storagecard = "\Storage Card"
EndIf

SDConfigGen - a tool for automatically creating SDAutorun configurations

First off, I'd like to thank Sleuth255 for SDAutoRun, and to mousio for his AutoRun tool which provided the inspiration for this project.
SDConfigGen is a command line tool for the PC which inspects a collection of files to be installed, then produces an SDConfig.txt and other associated scripts and provisioning files to allow SDAutoRun to automatically install them.
It differs from mousio's solution in that rather than having SDAutoRun call a MortScript to do all the work, this tool creates an SDConfig.txt to do the majority, only calling scripts for specific functionality when required. Scripts (and therefore MortScript) may not even be required, if nothing being installed needs automation.
Installation
Unzipping the contents of the archive will produce this folder structure:
\
Storage Card\SDConfig\Cabs\
Files\
Scripts\
Settings\
Sys\​First things first - to use any of the script-based functionality a copy of the MortScript installation cab file must be placed within the Sys folder. Download MortScript-4.11b7.zip (or newer version) from http://www.sto-helit.de, then extract \cab\MortScript-4.11b7-PPC.cab from it.
Usage
If the name of the Storage Card will be different on your target device, then rename that folder to whatever it will be. Otherwise, just leave it as it is.
Within the sub-folders of SDConfig, add the files you want to be installed.
Cabs:
Any .cab files in this folder will be installed. If the installation of a .cab file requires user interaction (to confirm a license window, for example), then create a .mscr script file of the same name containing instructions to be executed while the cab file is being installed.
For example, if you need to install a cab file: "eWallet-PocketPC-Install.cab",
create a file called "eWallet-PocketPC-Install.mscr" too. This file contains
MortScript to be run while the cab installer is being run, for example:
Code:
windowTitle = "Software License Agreement"
WaitFor(windowTitle, 60)
SendLeftSoft(windowTitle)
Note that you don't need to worry about actually installing the cab, or waiting for installation to finish - just write the automation code itself.
The SDAutoRun UI will be hidden while an interactive cab is being installed like this, and a MortScript status window shown instead. The device will be responsive to user input, so if any non-automatable interaction is required, that can be done manually.
Files:
After the cab files have been installed, all files in this folder will be copied directly to the root folder. To copy files to sub-folders, place them in sub-folders of this folder. For example, to copy files to the Windows folder, create a Windows folder here and place the files within it.
Standard (English) folder names will automatically be replaced by variables, so files in the "Files\Program Files" folder here will be copied to %CE1% folder by SDAutoRun.
The file copy operation is actually performed by generating a CopyFiles.xml provisioning file in the Sys folder, and it is this that goes in the SDConfig.txt file. This method was chosen as it avoids the path length limit of copying directly in SDConfig.txt, and allows for the %CEn% variable subsitution scheme.
Settings:
After the files have been copied, any settings in this folder will be applied. Settings may either be .xml provisioning files (which are added directly to SDConfig.txt), or registry data in .reg, .rgu or .cereg files. Registry data files will be automatically converted to xml provisioning files within the Sys folder, which are then added to SDConfig.txt.
Scripts:
After the settings have been applied, any .mscr scripts within this folder will be executed. SDConfigGen will generate instructions in SDConfig.txt to automatically handle copying them to the \Temp folder and renaming them to replace spaces by underscores before execution if required.
Note that the device will not be interactive at this point, so don't write scripts that require user interaction.
Sys:
Apart from placing a copy of MortScript-4.11b7-PPC.cab in here, you shouldn't touch the contents of this folder; they will be automatically cleaned out and generated by the SDConfigGen tool.
Notes
I've provided RegToXml as a standalone .exe file so that registry data files can be manually converted to .xml provisioning files, if required. This is not generally necessary, though, as it will occur automatically as part of the SDConfigGen process.
Due to limitations of SDAutoRun, during installation some files need to be copied to the \Temp folder on the device before execution. A TempCleanup.xml provisioning file is generated in the Sys folder by SDConfigGen which is the last thing executed by SDConfig.txt. It should remove any temporary files that were placed in the \Temp folder, but will not remove the folder itself, or any other files within it.
SDAutoRun also requires that SDConfig.txt be ASCII, which means that if any files contain characters outside that range (such as accented characters), they can not be directly referenced. SDConfigGen will automatically detect this, and generate provisioning XML files to transparently rename the files before processing them, then back again afterwards.
The last statement in the SDConfig.txt is the RST: Reset statment, to reset the device.
The only part of the file structure that can be changed is the name of the "Storage Card" folder - the other folders cannot be renamed or moved. By default, when the SDConfigGen tool is run, it works with the first sub folder under the folder the .exe file is placed. To override this behaviour, pass the folder path to SDConfigGen.exe as a command line argument.
Cabs, settings and scripts are executed in alphabetical order, grouped by subfolder. Subfolders will be executed first, so for example the contents of Cabs\Prerequisites\ would be installed before the files directly in Cabs\ (but after files in Cabs\A\). All interactive cabs are executed first, followed by non-interactive ones.
All generated files (except SDConfig.txt) are in Unicode UTF-16 encoding.
To have SDConfigGen create a log file of the generation process, use the SDConfigGenWithLog.bat file included in the archive. It will create a results.log file containing the messages that would normally be output to the console.
This is still an early version, so there will probably be bugs with it. I've used it successfully for setting up my own device several times now, but I can't make any guarantees. Please do post any bug reports or suggestions here though!
Alex
Updates
0.6:
All output files are now in UTF-16 encoding, with the exception of SDConfig.txt, which is in ASCII.
If files referenced by SDConfig.txt have names containing non-ASCII characters, provisioning files to automatically rename them before they are accessed, and to restore them afterwards will be generated.
Subfolders are now supported in the Cabs, Settings and Scripts folders. Files within subfolders will be processed first, in alphabetical order of subfolder name.
File folder variable substition made case insensitive
Added SDConfigGenWithLog.bat file for easy logging of output to a log file
0.5.1:
Removed .svn files from the file structure (oops!)
0.5:
Made warning message on skipping registry files less confusing
RegToXml: Now supports empty values for String, MultiString and Binary values
RegToXml: Made ,ore robust to invalid data - if a value contains invalid data, only that value is skipped.
RegToXml: The line number is now reported with any error or warning message.
RegToXml: Whitespace allowed to surround the = in value lines.
0.4:
RegToXml: Fixed nesting bug with registry key deletion conversion
RegToXml: Now supports comments (lines starting with ; )
0.3:
RegToXml now assumes that registry files without Unicode BOM's are encoded in the system default ANSI codepage, rather than UTF-8 (this means that if your registry file is UTF-8, it must contain a Byte Order Mark to be read correctly)
0.2:
Files are now installed in alphabetical order by file name (within their own group). For example, first interactive cabs A-Z, then non-interactive cabs A-Z. This allows control over installing cabs that require others to be installed before or after them.
.NET Framework (required)

Lookin Mighty Fine Siuer.
Not in the Testing Time yet.
But does the scripts folder eventually combine the scripts into one?
(lazy Bum At Work, Not Able to test it)

No, the scripts in the scripts folder are not combined into a single script, they are all executed separately. Would there be some benefit to trying to combine them into a single script before execution?

AlexVallat said:
No, the scripts in the scripts folder are not combined into a single script, they are all executed separately. Would there be some benefit to trying to combine them into a single script before execution?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
No, you are absolutely right there is now good reason for it.
It's better to have them seprated, makes finding **** Ups easier.
Don't know what i was thinking or why..

AlexVallat,
Thanks for your job, you soft is amazingly simple which is a great pro compared to SASHIMI for instance.
So yhis afternoon I started to put all my files in the appropriate folders and when I launch SDConfigGen with the folder path I don't get in the config.txt file \Storage Card\ before the files to execute but the path I gave as parameter. I think transforming the path given into \Storage Card\ could help.
One other point, as a poor French guy your RegToXml converter does not handle all the French extended character set such as é, à, ... Could you make it support this characters.
Anyway for now it is fully usable but requires SDConfig.txt file edition before launching the whole process. Tomorrow it will be hands-on time as I plan to upgrade my Polaris ROM so more news to come regarding SDCofingGen usage.
The_Steph

The_Steph said:
AlexVallat,
Thanks for your job, you soft is amazingly simple which is a great pro compared to SASHIMI for instance.
So yhis afternoon I started to put all my files in the appropriate folders and when I launch SDConfigGen with the folder path I don't get in the config.txt file \Storage Card\ before the files to execute but the path I gave as parameter. I think transforming the path given into \Storage Card\ could help.
One other point, as a poor French guy your RegToXml converter does not handle all the French extended character set such as é, à, ... Could you make it support this characters.
Anyway for now it is fully usable but requires SDConfig.txt file edition before launching the whole process. Tomorrow it will be hands-on time as I plan to upgrade my Polaris ROM so more news to come regarding SDCofingGen usage.
The_Steph
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Hm my pall had the same thing but changing to Unicode seemed to solve his XML issue. NOt sure if this is the same but worth the try.

Great work alex!
Question:
Anyway to verify the syntax of the provisioning XML files?
Any tools out there that can create these files or verify them? I think a tool like this would be great.
NEVERMIND! I just saw your reply in the reg2xml converter thread! THANKS!

The_Steph: Thanks for your comments!
The idea with the path is that the name of the folder is used to control the name of the Storage Card on the device. So if you name your folder Storage Card, that's what goes in the SDConfig.txt. If, on your device, it has a different name (due to language changes, or whatever), then you need to rename the folder appropriately.
Thanks for the bug report about accented characters in RegToXml. I will fix that and post an updated version soon.
gtxaspec: I could verify that the files were valid XML, but the more useful check that they contain valid provisioning instructions is beyond the scope of this project. Not least because the documentation describing what are valid instructions is confusing and can be inaccurate. With anything other than the file and registry providers, it usually ends up being a case of trial and error. With the file and registry providers, using the auto-generation capabilities of SDConfigGen will avoid most surprises.
Alex

Version 0.3 released
I've just updated the first post to release version 0.3. This should address the accented characters issue raised by The_Steph, however it does mean that if your registry file is UTF-8 encoded, it must include Byte Order Marks to indicate this. Otherwise, it will be assumed to be encoded in the system default code page.
I've also added a feature that files are now installed in alphabetical order (within each group). If you need to make sure that certain cabs are installed before others, this can now be done by renaming them, usually by including a numeric prefix.
Alex

reg2xml bugs
Hi Alex,
Converting everything to xml and using standard provisioning is an interesting approach!
Only obviously reg2xml has got some problems still with .reg files containing certain characters:
I've attached you a sample file which is not converted correctly at three points, each with a different error cause.
- Comments (Lines beginning with ";") in the .reg files are sometimes (not in every case, could not see what the trigger is) leading to an aborted conversion.
- Some characters like the arrow character (ASCII 27/1BHex) are also a problem.
Maybe the attached file helps in finding the bug.
BTW: Do you also have a tool that is converting just the other way around: From XML to reg indstead of from reg to XML?
Sometimes I need to have a .reg file instead of an .XML. And importing the XML and then trying to find all registry entries to export it back to a .reg can be a very tedious thing when the imports are not all together in one registry branch.
Thanks!

Thanks for the bug report, asango. Yes, I forgot about comments, I'll fix that and release an update soon. I'm looking into what the best way to handle control characters like 0x1B is (which is 'Escape', according to the ASCII chart I'm looking at). Obviously crashing is not an acceptable behaviour, so I'll have some sort of fix for it.
I don't have a XmlToReg tool, but it sounds like a good idea - I'll probably write one over the weekend.
Alex

Great, looking forward to that, thank you!

Version 0.4 released
The first post has been updated to version 0.4. RegToXml has been updated to add support for comments in .reg files.
Unfortunately there appears to be no way to include control characters in an XML file. If the character itself, or even the character entity (like &#x1B, then the file is regarded as malformed and not accepted. I have therefore not been able to do anything to fix this (sorry asango!).
If anyone knows of a way that a provisioning file could be used to set a registry string value containing these characters, please let me know.
On a more positive note, the requested XmlToReg tool is up - I've given it its own thread here: XmlToReg.
Alex

Yes, the comments are now handled corectly, perfect!
Some other thing is still an issue:
test.reg: Converting...
test.reg: Conversion failed. (Unexpected value format: dword) Skipping.
In this case the output file is not generated at all, seems that not only the value is skipped but this causes the whole file not being written.
This leads to another suggestion: Would it be possible to indicate the line number where a problem happened?
This would make it much easier to find the problem.
And regarding the non handled escape characters:
This also leads to aborting. Would it also be possible to just skip them and issue a warning but go on with the conversion and with writing the outout file for the rest of the entries?

Now that is odd. "dword" is a perfectly valid value format, it shouldn't have produced that error. Any chance you could send me the .reg file that produced it?
Line numbers should be do-able, I'll add that to the next version.
The "skipping" message there referred to the "test.reg" at the start of the message, not to the dword value. I agree it looks misleading as it is currently worded though, I'll improve that.
About recovering from errors and skipping only invalid values rather than the whole file - this will be quite tricky. By the time I am notified of invalid characters by the XmlWriter, it has already given up in a sulk and can't be persuaded to continue writing any further. I'll need to do some sort of pre-vetting before passing data on to it. If I come up with any good ideas on how to do this, I'll include it in the next version.
Alex

asango, here's a candidate RegToXml.0.5.0 - could you check if it is still reporting the "Unexpected value format: dword" error with your file? It now reports line numbers, which might help track down the problem. It should also be able to recover from an invalid value and skip just that value, although I'm not sure how well that is working yet.
Alex

Hi Alex,
Great, the line numbers are making things much easier and this way I even found the reason for this error very easily:
Here's the point where it is failing:
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Drivers\BuiltIn\RIL]
"NITZEnable"= dword:00000001
...with this error message:
test.reg: Converting...
[Line 194] Error: Invalid value (Unexpected value format: dword)
Skipping: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Drivers\BuiltIn\RIL\NITZEnable
Done.
As soon as I'm deleting the blank between the "=" and "dword" everything is ok.
Maybe you can allow blanks after the "=" in general?
This would solve this issue definitely
And yes, by the way the xml file is now generated despite of this error, very good!
Asango

Hmm... I'm not sure whitespace is supposed to be allowed around the = sign. It doesn't make anything ambiguous though, so there's no good reason not to relax the matching. Try this 0.5.1 which allows whitespace around the = sign, hopefully that should now parse your file correctly.
Alex

Yes, now I can see no other issues with the RegToXml tool, good work!
Also the whole cold boot import is ok with one exception:
Only the CopyFiles.xml which is generated by the SDConfigGen.exe is not copying all the files from the "Files" diectory during its execution.
Tried to import that xml manually with the xml option of Taskmgr and also got an error, but since the error is *very* uninformative and not showing the line number and my CopyFiles.xml is rather big I could not find the problem.
Could it be that the reason for the error is that if a file is already existing or read only that this will stop the rest of the import?

asango said:
Yes, now I can see no other issues with the Only the CopyFiles.xml which is generated by the SDConfigGen.exe is not copying all the files from the "Files" diectory during its execution.
Tried to import that xml manually with the xml option of Taskmgr and also got an error, but since the error is *very* uninformative and not showing the line number and my CopyFiles.xml is rather big I could not find the problem.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Second hands-on day with SDConfigGen and I have the same issue with v0.4. CopyFiles.xml is not executed at all. Probably a syntax error issue as stated by asango (I've done the same tests as him).
The_Steph

[DLL/WINMD][Source] Ativ S RPC Client

ive created a clean implementation rpc client that calls remote procedures to the FCRouter service. its more of a proof of concept. it doesnt use any part of RPCComponent, just straight up low level rpc. right now it only has 2 methods exposed, copyfile and createprocess. i will add more later. copyfile AFAIK isnt in RPCComponent. i could be wrong though, but it allows file copying anywhere on the system, even from hidden folders. for example, C:\dpp\microsoft\microsoft.pvk (oops). watch out though, you could hard brick your device messing with the wrong files.
i have a similar library for lumia that allows full file and reg access,but my screen on my lumia is broken, and the code is messy and has alot of hard coded memory addresses,so it wont run on any other device. when i get my replacement screen, ill fix it up and make it available (hello caps unlock).
heres the lib and the src code for anyone curious and wants to play around with it. have fun.
How to use the library
-----------------------
add <Capability Name="ID_CAP_INTEROPSERVICES"/> to WMAppManifest.xml
add a reference to RPClib.winmd
add "using RPClib" or "using namespace RPClib" declaration
c# silverlight code example
-------------------------
//instantiate the library
RPClib.ativ arpc = new RPClib.ativ();
//initialize and bind the RPC connection
arpc.RPC_Init();
//CopyFile
String src = "C:\\Data\\Users\\Public\\Pictures\\mypic.jpg";
String dst = "C:\\mypic.jpg";
UInt32 flag = 0;
arpc.RPC_CopyFileEx(src, dst, flag);
flag is a flag that determines if the copyfile operation will overwrite a file if it already exists.
1 = FAIL and do not overwrite if file exists.
0 = overwrite if file exists.
please test the flag option just in case.
//CreateProcess
String cmdline = "C:\\windows\\system32\\someinterestingfile.exe /somecommandlineoption";
arpc.RPC_CreateProcessA(cmdline);

first application using this lib + source code :
It works for file copy correctly but I weren't able to use for running process maybe I don't know how to use it

You did a amazing job.
No one to know, How to write such RPC stuff. SO Why all are uses OEM stuff ? But, You did It !!!
Thanks again @vcfan