SoftICE DEAD?

[Dinetti]

It seems SoftICE is dead forever. Sad but true.

Regards,
Dinetti

Original statement from Compuware

"DriverStudio
As of April 3rd, 2006 the DriverStudio product family has retired. For customer support information please contact our FrontLine website."

Devpartner website with information above on the right pan.
hxxp://www.compuware.com/products/devpartner/

Blog from Matt Pietrek:
hxxp://blogs.msdn.com/matt_pietrek/archive/2006/04/11/573621.aspx

[NeOXOeN]

Really said.. it was really good tool...

Like all good stories.. they is alwasy an ending..


bye

[dj-siba]

Seems that A new Era is comming...

[Unforgiv3N]

i can't beleive it, that was the best Kernel Mode Debugger Around

[Newbie_Cracker]

Believe it !

If they said that, it's not too strange !

Did you (and we) pay for it?

Yes, it's really sad. I already read about it some days ago.

I believe this is one of the first "suprises" we will all get with Windows Vista.

Microsoft will not allow anybody on Vista to load a driver which was not digitally signed by Microsoft, unless you attach the Microsoft Kernel Mode Debugger. So this is the end of SoftICE. Even if SoftICE would use a signed driver, you couldn't debug your own drivers with it, since you would not be using the Microsoft debugger.

This will be also the end of many daily-use applications which need some driver, since driver signing by Microsoft is very expensive and I don't expect Microsoft to drop their prices by 99%.

We will see how our beloved Sysinternals tools will vanish, unpackers and dumpers based on drivers will stop working. They will be followed by really usefull programs like CPU-Z and Daemon-Tools. Eventually all freeware Firewalls and Anti-Virus applications will die. Finally all paid software using drivers will get more expensive.

Of course there won't be any more "beta" tests for new hardware drivers any more, no more "hacked" video drivers to get the best framerate and visual quality in games. The general driver quality will drop.

And for what? Only to allow companies like Macrovison and Symantec to buy more and more competing companies and let their software die, just be course they have the money to pay for Microsoft driver signing while the other companies do not. Finally there will be something like 10 major companies only selling crap software, but nobody can compete with their products, since nobody has the money to pay Microsoft to allow alternative applications to be used.

Maybe some day the driver protection will be cracked, but the software will already have disappeared since they are not allowed to "legally" work on cracked Windows versions.

[taos]

Perhaps then SOs like Linux will be more powerfull and companies will change to a freeware SO. Then M$ drivers will not be necessary and Linux could be the ONLY THE BEST from M$ SO. In future, we will need to make a question: Why use M$ SO?.
If win32 emulators from Linux will execute essential apps that you need at work, you don't need M$. Office, CAD, etc... are migrated. A better Directx emulation will be the next so you don't need Windows to play games. And you don't need defrag,skin soft, extended SO soft,etc... in Linux. It can that M$ is digging its tomb because if you try to close the circle, it breaks, because world is expanding and people changes where is more easy to be. Maybe I am an optimist.

why do you all cry? syser looks far more interesting now, you can load and unload it, its ring0, too bad no config yet, define of keys, and any plugins or tools like iceext. all what was going with softice last time its was making it worse and striped from commands that were in earlier version. i started using it in 1997 and since 10 years they havent added load or save memory. and paying for it 4000$ is just crime

Maybe "Syser" is now a good debugger (I don't really like it for various reasons), but as soon as Windows Vista comes out, it will have the same fate as SoftICE: It will be useless since only the Microsoft debugger can load unsigned drivers, just like MarkusO pointed out above.

And you have to understand what SoftICE is designed to be. It is not a cracking tool, it is a professional debugger. Loading and saving memory is nothing which an application of this kind needs to able to do, since the typical user working with SoftICE is a programmer who has the source code of his own application. Therefore he can always change his source to read/write some memory.

[D-Jester]

Perhaps SoftICE will be continued by the sceen.

The general concensus is that its developer won't continue it, but I would guess that people who love it will find a way to modify the final release as they need to continue its use on Vista+

I am not a fan of Kernel Mode Debuggers, running Ring0 for any purpose don't appeal to me, most of what I need I find in Ring3.

While I'm a fan of OllyDBG I believe it too has come to an end, I haven't heard anything about any new releases, the site hasn't been updated in nearly a year.

Thats my two cents, peace

Originally Posted by MarkusO

Microsoft will not allow anybody on Vista to load a driver which was not digitally signed by Microsoft

Well, then not in a week after the first release, several "load your own driver in Vista" howto-s and patches will show up.

Besides, on current Vista betas you can use the Sysinternal tools, and I don't expect many changes in the final version.

I consider this, as a usual MS blahblah...
They're just trying to pressurize the hw manufacturers and driver writers to get even more profit.

[taos]

And you can use Virtual Machine with XP to debug with SoftIce your apps in Windows Vista using remote debugging, don't you?

"And you can use Virtual Machine with XP to debug with SoftIce your apps in Windows Vista using remote debugging, don't you?"


But if one does that, there are more layers to deal with.. both techncial and hardware wise..

Besides I heard tha M$ has some surprises in store for VMWare.. built in hooks for virtual pc/server and of course some "enhanced" extras that one gets when trying to use non-m$ products..

[taos]

And there's 1 more afirmation:
If you want to make a ring0 protection, you need a ring0 debugger, so we only need same debugger that programmer uses. If someday M$ sends to waste ALL ring0 debuggers, this day, forget ring0 protections.
If you don't have good ring0 debuggers (M$ debug is poor) you only will make simple ring0 drivers.

well not forget (good? but not so good) ring0 drivers. due its msshit goal as they stated they will add workaround for you on request, probably for some $$$
they want to keep security and control over vista, and dont let you take over system.
so there will be 2 ways, cracked vista with allowing of run and install of not signed drivers or you will need to contact msshit support team to req some features in kernel, that you need from ring0 drivers and vista doesnt have now