7 ms·

I'm not familiar with Win32 APIs. Could you elaborate more as to how they would enable you to control the client like a zombie?

Edootjuh 13y ago
I think he means the APIs that allow you to simulate mouseclicks and keyboard input on arbitrary windows and controls
- MichaelApproved 13y ago
  That's what I meant to use it for but the API is used at the root of applications to draw windows, handle mouse click events, accept keyboard input, create icons in the system tray and anything else that would involve Windows UI. In the same way applications use the win API to create their UI, others could use it to manipulate and control the interface of other programs. It's powerful.
kybernetyk 13y ago
Actually it ranges from simple event spoofing (user clicked here, user dragged there) to injecting a DLL + spawning a thread under your control. Event spoofing is pretty limited. While having a thread under your control gives you full power as you have full access to the process' memory and can call any function you want.
Tuna-Fish 13y ago
You can basically read anything from controls, and trigger callbacks at will, as if you had actually clicked a button or written some text. This means that you can write "expect-like" software -- just start up the program, and have another program read input from it's text fields and issue commands to it. I have actually done a lot of this, putting old sourceless win32 and win16 programs run in the background on virtual machines on the server and building new web-based interfaces on top of them.
atesti 13y ago
It's quite easy, see here for example: http://blogs.msdn.com/b/oldnewthing/archive/2013/04/08/10409196.aspx http://blogs.msdn.com/b/oldnewthing/archive/2013/04/08/10409...
swatkat 13y ago
AutoIt is a popular software to automate GUI applications. http://www.autoitscript.com/site/autoit/ http://www.autoitscript.com/site/autoit/
- mkopinsky 13y ago
  Boston Workstation[0] is another, that I used quite a bit at work for a while. Pretty powerful, although I have no more desire to touch VB ever again. [0]: http://www.bostonsoftwaresystems.com/ http://www.bostonsoftwaresystems.com/

Edootjuh 13y ago

I think he means the APIs that allow you to simulate mouseclicks and keyboard input on arbitrary windows and controls

MichaelApproved 13y ago
That's what I meant to use it for but the API is used at the root of applications to draw windows, handle mouse click events, accept keyboard input, create icons in the system tray and anything else that would involve Windows UI. In the same way applications use the win API to create their UI, others could use it to manipulate and control the interface of other programs. It's powerful.

kybernetyk 13y ago

Actually it ranges from simple event spoofing (user clicked here, user dragged there) to injecting a DLL + spawning a thread under your control. Event spoofing is pretty limited. While having a thread under your control gives you full power as you have full access to the process' memory and can call any function you want.

Tuna-Fish 13y ago

You can basically read anything from controls, and trigger callbacks at will, as if you had actually clicked a button or written some text. This means that you can write "expect-like" software -- just start up the program, and have another program read input from it's text fields and issue commands to it. I have actually done a lot of this, putting old sourceless win32 and win16 programs run in the background on virtual machines on the server and building new web-based interfaces on top of them.

atesti 13y ago

It's quite easy, see here for example: http://blogs.msdn.com/b/oldnewthing/archive/2013/04/08/10409196.aspx http://blogs.msdn.com/b/oldnewthing/archive/2013/04/08/10409...

swatkat 13y ago

AutoIt is a popular software to automate GUI applications. http://www.autoitscript.com/site/autoit/ http://www.autoitscript.com/site/autoit/

mkopinsky 13y ago
Boston Workstation[0] is another, that I used quite a bit at work for a while. Pretty powerful, although I have no more desire to touch VB ever again. [0]: http://www.bostonsoftwaresystems.com/ http://www.bostonsoftwaresystems.com/