Don't want to upgrade the Flash Plugin? (again)

[enhzflep]

Introduction

As many of you will be developing with Flash, you will come to have known the Flash Debugger as an indispensable tool. As I write, the newest version available of the debugger-enabled plugin is 9.0.115

In order to watch the streaming videos on another site I frequent, you need to have flash player 9.0.124 installed - this means you must do away with the ability to debug your code or you must re-install one or the other version each time you switch between Dev mode and video-tutorial mode (yeah sure! Cos you only do one or the other, right?)

Well during my frustration this evening, I decided to do something about it. This is the result of what I came up with.

How I went about it

First, I had to locate the NPSWF32.dll file that is essentially the plugin. This, I found, is located in C:\Windows\System32\Macromed\Flash

Next, I proceeded to open it up in OllyDbg to check out it's exports - the functions it made available to any program that used it. AHA! Bingo - there's a function named "native_ShockwaveFlash_FlashVersion". So I located it at RVA 300D0B74 and had a look. Hmm, not much to see - it's just a 2 line function

	mov	eax, 90000
	 ret

So to be sure, I had a look at the same function in an older version of the plugin - Crap! it's same code. Then I had a thought - Hmm, I wonder ... I wonder if the program is just checking the version info that you can include as a resource. - The version info that is displayed in grey below the file-name when viewed in explorer.

So I opened up the offending file and changed it's version info to match that of the new file. Result? SUCCESS!!

Instructions

So, you ask - how do I do that? Easy, just follow these few steps.

1) (Re)Install the debug version of the Flash Plugin.

2) Goto C:\WINDOWS\System32\Macromed\Flash

3) Download and install a PE-file resource editor. e.g PE Explorer, Resource Hacker. I use Resource Hacker, since it's free and by a fellow Aussie.

4) Open up NPSWF32.dll and locate the Version Info resource at the bottom of the pane.

5) Change all instances of 115 to 124 (if you have an older version, the number will be lower than 115 - you still need to patch to 124)

6) Save and continue on your merry way.

I've attached a screen-shot that highlights all the places I made changes.

S.