WowLoader Source Code Discussion

[abcba]

Hey, I'm the author of WowLoader.
It was suggested to me that I might find people interested in the source here.
As I've decided to move on, there's still a few things left undone (ignoring the various crashes).

First off, there's the activation issue.
The reason activate.exe isn't working is because it dynamically loads a DLL which cannot be loaded due to unresolved imports.
Unresolved imports is handled in the loader during the process creation stage, by creating the process suspended, the loader has a chance to resolve missing imports, before the OS attempts to resolve them.
The specific class which handles this is named CAppPatch.
Obviously this approach doesn't work with dynamically loaded DLL's.
What's needed is to hook the LoadLibrary(Ex)(A/W) call used and load the DLL manually.
You can use the flag DONT_RESOLVE_DLL_REFERENCES to get the OS to map the DLL properly.
Then you need to resolve the imports of the DLL yourself and call the entry point at appropiate times.
Not sure if there's more work to be done after that, in theory that should be enough.

Second, there's the dedicated server.
The dedicated runs as a service process, which means the loader doesn't have any control of it's creation.
What's needed here is to adapt the loader to work as a proxy service, which can then be registered in place of the dedicated server, to launch it properly.
Once the loader service is started, it will need to create the dedicated server process, passing the appropiate arguments, using CLoader.
Wow.dll will need to include hooks for RegisterServiceCtrlHandler(Ex)(A/W) so that it can catch the address of ServiceMain in the dedicated server.
Now, whenever the loader service receives a notification through it's ServiceMain it'll have to notify Wow.dll, so that it can relay the notification onto the dedicated server's ServiceMain.
I'd suggest creating a window in Wow.dll and using windows messages.

Anyway, that's about it, I think.
If you have any questions about the source, this is the place to ask them.
There's a little bit of info on the FileFront forums where I posted WowLoader originally.
Here's a direct link to the source code: http://upload2.net/page/download/Vno...r-SRC.rar.html

[Local] http://files.h2vista.net/software/Wo...Loader-SRC.rar

[Limited]

Bit of a bogded job then? Makes it unstable and possibly unreliable later on down the line (after updates)

[Patrickssj6]

Hey!

Good to have you here.

[abcba]

Bit of a bogded job then? Makes it unstable and possibly unreliable later on down the line (after updates)

I'm sorry you can't appreciate the effort on my part for what it is.
However, the source code is right here, you're more then welcome fix it.

Cheers

[bitterbanana]

I don't think this would be the best place to find someone to continue your code. As far as I know, there aren't too many programmers here. Where do hackers hang out anyway? I'll send this out to the few people I know, but I don't even have the minimum video card to run the game, let alone test the code.

By the way, great job getting it to work.

[Con]

I'd have to agree with bitter. There aren't many programmers here, and those who can aren't all skilled to the level you require.

[Phopojijo]

Meh, there a few programmers around here. Probably the best way to proceed is to create an account down at Sourceforge.

[abcba]

I don't know know any "hackers" that plays halo.
Oh well, at least I tried...

[StankBacon]

god i love these forums.

so many appreciative people.

[Flapjack]

Dude, you seriously have to fix the crash issues, please! I frikken almost fried my GPU by overclocking it so I could run it in Vista. I just wish and hope you would fix some of the crash issues. PLEASE. By the way, Bitterbanna, I don't have the minimum card either, but it still runs in Vista for me, with or without overclocking. I just had to OC it to get a playable framerate.