Help With SoftIce

Thanks least this helps quite a bit. How do I get to DOS from 98 or XP?. Do I use the command line or do I have to boot to dos. One more thing, after I'm in DOS how do I run a program. This probably seems pretty elementary but I never have had any real need to learn DOS until now. I also have found a few helpful sites: hxxp://www.uv.tietgen.dk/staff/mlha/index.htm. Lots of good programming info there. Once again thanks for your help, it is very much appreciated.

d

For the first steps the commandline is good enough. But if you plan using Sice for dos, it have to be booted to dos. In XP there is no way how to do this I think; in W98 you can press F8 at the very start - it will show you menu where you can chose to run dos. The other thing is that you can write yourself structured config - it will let you choose the whole configuration.

But I would really recomend you to use that VMWARE - (it must seem to you like advertisment because if something goes wrong, then almost no harm is done, since you can backup those VMs. You can learn on it safely how to use fdisk, format, and other commands that you wouldn't try on your machine. Here you can practice safely...

Concerning running the files, just type in the filename and and press enter; beside that there are three types of executables - EXE,COM and BAT - exe and com are normal executables, bat are batch files. One more notice, there exists environment variable called path, it contains paths that are searched for executables. To be more clear - when you try to run executable, the system first looks into current directory, and then searches the path.
And the last thing - (I hope I remember it right) if files with the same name but different extensions, then bat is executed as default; if there is just com and exe then com is run.
Hope it helps,
least

Thanks again least. I have started exploring the command line a little. I ran into some problems but this is another issue related to a procedure I was trying to follow. I have downloaded VMware Workstation and have just received the 30-day trial serial (I hope this is the one you meant). I will have to work with this over the weekend and see what happens. Also thanks for the help file. All these things are helping out a lot. Got to go now.

Thanks again,
d

Few weeks ago there used to be VMWARE along with keygen you know where If it won't come back soon, I'll put it back. I also have install disks of good old MSDOS 6.2, so I can send them to you (or upload them somewhere 4x1.44MB).
Good luck,
least

Least, I so appreciate what you're doing. It's painful when you're struggling to understand and nothing is working. It is such a burden lifted when you find others who will help. The offer on the VMWARE and the DOS is super. I have been trying to bone up on DOS syntax and am anxious to get started again. With each start I get a little further. In one SI tut (SoftIce manual Release 2.5) they use a program called GDIDEMO (to debug as an example) and with DOS prompt C:\PROGRAM FILES\NUMEGA\DRIVERSTUDIO\SOFTICE\EXAMPLES\GDIDEMO>NMAKE. Must this be done to each program (NMAKE) before loading into symbol loader? Do you know where to get GDIDEMO.EXE?

Once again thanks so much,
d

In fact the nmake is program for automation of program compilation. It is part of (I think) every C compiler. Here it has debug info turned on (in the makefile), so when you debug it, you'll see to which lines the code belongs to. Also you need the exe to be run in the directory where sources are located. This means that this can be done only with programs, that you have with full source code. But this situation is quite rare in reality
The benefit is that you'll learn the basics.

To compile it, you have to load environment variables for your compiler, then run nmake with the right parameters (nmake /f makefile).
Good luck,
least

Thanks least. That��s interesting information. I found a printout of GDIDEMO done in C++ and I have installed Borland Turbo C++ (ver 3.0). With a little bit of luck I should be able to create the program and run the tut. Any suggestions?
Thanks,
d