How to find out what a exe does?

[Mikep7779]

I have a .exe that is souposed to add some "tweaks" to my registry, how do i find out what it is acctualy adding?

[cluberti]

For an .exe, you could look at the source, decompile it (not likely), or debug it while it's running (assuming you understand machine code and call stacks).

If you want a high-level overview, download filemon and regmon (from www.sysinternals.com) and run both, then run your .exe, then stop both regmon and filemon. They'll give you a snapshot of what just happened on your system, both on the filesystem and in the registry. It's best to run those when NOTHING else is running, short of Windows itself, because they're VERY verbose. Less is more, in this instance, if you want to see what is actually happening.

[Mikep7779]

For an .exe, you could look at the source, decompile it (not likely), or debug it while it's running (assuming you understand machine code and call stacks).

If you want a high-level overview, download filemon and regmon (from www.sysinternals.com) and run both, then run your .exe, then stop both regmon and filemon. They'll give you a snapshot of what just happened on your system, both on the filesystem and in the registry. It's best to run those when NOTHING else is running, short of Windows itself, because they're VERY verbose. Less is more, in this instance, if you want to see what is actually happening.

worked like a charm

[suryad]

Wow this is great info.

[cluberti]

We use these tools a lot for exactly this type of thing

[VISTABOBY]

NICE

VERY NICE