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Yeah, SoftICE, I remember buying Hackerzvoice (a French newspaper-like hacking magazine) which included SoftICE tutorials on how to crack WinRAR license verific

Yeah, SoftICE, I remember buying Hackerzvoice (a French newspaper-like hacking magazine) which included SoftICE tutorials on how to crack WinRAR license verification. (for educational purposes of course) I was amazed that I could breakpoint and debug any running app. I miss SoftICE. I read this a while back from someone who work for the company which owns SoftICE copyright : https://reverseengineering.stackexchange.com/questions/1445/how-do-i-acquire-softice https://reverseengineering.stackexchange.com/questions/1445/...

alasdair_ 9y ago
Any idea what people use now instead of softice?
- StillBored 9y ago
  It depends on what you are trying to do. Softice was good for "kernel" debugging, rather than just simple user space programs for which things like turbo debugger (and more modern solutions), were as good if not better. For windows kernel debugging, there is windbg, kd, and assorted "emulation" methods like qemu's gdb stub. Similarly for linux/kgdb/etc... OTOH, Softice had a number of OS data structure aware commands in the late 1990's which are only really available in something like windbg. In theory you could write kgdb macro's to perform most of that functionality for linux/etc but it doesn't work out of the box. Although in the end, the logical replacement for softIce, is a JTAG debugger of some form. A fair number of the ARM platforms work with DS5/Dstream which provides source level debugging with far more functionality (for example trace level timing information) than softice as an "ICE' ever did. I guess its the same for intel's ITP-XDP3/system studio products these days. Again, it depends on what your trying to debug. AKA do you need the "ICE' (aka JTAG these days) functionality, or are you just looking for a powerful kernel or user-space debugger.
- nekitamo 9y ago
  Ollydbg on 32 bit windows x64dbg on 64 bit windows IDA Pro Debugger/GDB/LLDB on Linux/OSX/iOS/Android GDB everywhere else as StillBored said, windbg for Windows kernel debugging, but I've honestly only used it in exotic situations for .NET debugging
- orthecreedence 9y ago
  I've been poking at radare2 for a while now. Really great CLI debugger (works in windows as well).
- therein 9y ago
  IDA Pro, WinDbg, OllyDbg, Radare would be the first ones to come to mind.
plq 9y ago
Wasn't SoftICE a bit of an overkill for cracking WinRAR? If memory serves right, it was a tool mainly for debugging kernel-level code (drivers) -- that's why it had to start before windows. WinDBG and similar userspace tools should have been just as good (or even better, as they woudn't interfere with WinAMP :)) for dealing with userspace processes.
- pixdamix 9y ago
  Totally overkill yes, but without internet, you use whatever you're able to put your hands on ;-) Ironically, the first software I cracked, well tried to, was an IRC client named Klient if I recall correctly. I bypassed the license check, but, this software included a functionality which, when it detected this, broadcasted to everyone (except me) that I was using a pirated version and that I was accepting the CTCP reboot command :-)

alasdair_ 9y ago

Any idea what people use now instead of softice?

StillBored 9y ago
It depends on what you are trying to do. Softice was good for "kernel" debugging, rather than just simple user space programs for which things like turbo debugger (and more modern solutions), were as good if not better. For windows kernel debugging, there is windbg, kd, and assorted "emulation" methods like qemu's gdb stub. Similarly for linux/kgdb/etc... OTOH, Softice had a number of OS data structure aware commands in the late 1990's which are only really available in something like windbg. In theory you could write kgdb macro's to perform most of that functionality for linux/etc but it doesn't work out of the box. Although in the end, the logical replacement for softIce, is a JTAG debugger of some form. A fair number of the ARM platforms work with DS5/Dstream which provides source level debugging with far more functionality (for example trace level timing information) than softice as an "ICE' ever did. I guess its the same for intel's ITP-XDP3/system studio products these days. Again, it depends on what your trying to debug. AKA do you need the "ICE' (aka JTAG these days) functionality, or are you just looking for a powerful kernel or user-space debugger.
nekitamo 9y ago
Ollydbg on 32 bit windows x64dbg on 64 bit windows IDA Pro Debugger/GDB/LLDB on Linux/OSX/iOS/Android GDB everywhere else as StillBored said, windbg for Windows kernel debugging, but I've honestly only used it in exotic situations for .NET debugging
orthecreedence 9y ago
I've been poking at radare2 for a while now. Really great CLI debugger (works in windows as well).
therein 9y ago
IDA Pro, WinDbg, OllyDbg, Radare would be the first ones to come to mind.

plq 9y ago

Wasn't SoftICE a bit of an overkill for cracking WinRAR? If memory serves right, it was a tool mainly for debugging kernel-level code (drivers) -- that's why it had to start before windows. WinDBG and similar userspace tools should have been just as good (or even better, as they woudn't interfere with WinAMP :)) for dealing with userspace processes.

pixdamix 9y ago
Totally overkill yes, but without internet, you use whatever you're able to put your hands on ;-) Ironically, the first software I cracked, well tried to, was an IRC client named Klient if I recall correctly. I bypassed the license check, but, this software included a functionality which, when it detected this, broadcasted to everyone (except me) that I was using a pirated version and that I was accepting the CTCP reboot command :-)