DeHacked from EXE

I need to get the deh data out of a DOOM2.EXE file and place it in a WAD that ZDOOM understands. (I never had the DEH file to begin with because I bought already patched EXEs back in the days)

Is it possible to extract deh data from an EXE file with some tool?

If yes, is DeHacked 3.0 or another suitable tool available on the net? My DeHacked is version 2, and presumably saves binary DEH files, and it also has some serious glitches that prevent it from working at all.

as far as I know, there is no way to take deh data from Doom2.exe.... I dont know what exactly you are looking for... a good tool for making DEH patches is WhackEd. WhackEd

Actually if you just load the EXE and then save a DEH patch without changing anything, it writes out *everything* to the patch, IIRC. I remember doing this once to recover the changes made to an EXE for which I'd lost the patch. You could do the same thing to a normal EXE and then compare the two patches with a DIFF utility to see what's different.

I've tried WhackEd2. I might have missed something but I can't get it to work. First of all, I can't find an option to open an EXE file. Furthermore, I can't open an existing patch file because I haven't got any and when I try to start a new patch file, there is an undocumented field 'Data wad' and whether I enter nothing et all, an existing wad or a non-existing wad, it always crashes with "Runtime error 5: Invalid procedure call or argument"

There is also an option "load table" in the menu, and when I select a table that ships with the install, it crashes with either the same error as mentioned before or "Runtime error 91: Object variable or With block variable not set".

Whacked2 can't be used for this purpose - you have to use dehacked.exe.

You need to make sure the "editname" in the dehacked.ini file matches that of the modified exe. Then start up dehacked.exe and save it as a text deh patch.

This output deh will be the same as the one originally used to create the exe, with the exception of any text comments, or any lines that were unable to be read properly, etc., or any that triggered bugs in dehacked. This can also be used as a way to track down problems in a deh patch (e.g. load the Batman deh patch, then save it again in the this way, and you will notice a discrepancy when you compare the output deh with the original one).

Quasar said:

Actually if you just load the EXE and then save a DEH patch without changing anything, it writes out *everything* to the patch, IIRC.

Hey. You mean:
- opening dehacked,
- {Z}apping all the data to the original,
- {S}aving as a patch?

I tried doing so, but it didn't work as intended. Instead, it just generates a null DEH, containing version and format data. Definitely not original data.

How exactly did you make it?

No, Grazza's steps work. I just made a deh out of deat's EXTREME DOOM 2 to try this out and it worked

Didn't Zom-B ask about obtaining original DEH data? Not modded. I thought he asked for that. And it interested me.

Grazza's steps are indeed correct. The only problem I can see you facing is if the modified exe and your unmodified exe are different versions. If so, you'll have to track down an exe of the same version (from the historic archive or whatever) to make it work.

printz said:

Didn't Zom-B ask about obtaining original DEH data? Not modded. I thought he asked for that. And it interested me.

I want the original data that was used to create my dehacked EXE file (since I've never seen a DEH file, I wouldn't know about comments and being able to hand-edit one). In other words, the DEH file that will patch a normal DOOM2.EXE (or ZDOOM) to the same mod I have.

I'm still looking for a good version of DeHacked. Does someone have a copy or download link?

Enjay said:

Grazza's steps are indeed correct. The only problem I can see you facing is if the modified exe and your unmodified exe are different versions. If so, you'll have to track down an exe of the same version (from the historic archive or whatever) to make it work.

I don't see the problem. I've got the patched and unmodified exe. I just want to extract the raw numbers from the patched exe, so why would I need the original?

Because dehacked patches list the differences between the unmodified and the modified exe. If you have a modified exe, you also need the unmodified version. DEHACKED will compare the two and write a patch of the differences - but both exes have to be the same original version (eg both 1.9 or whatever).

Dehacked could be found in the downloads section of DW last time I looked.

If you need help setting it up, you could look here:

http://www.zen64060.zen.co.uk/dehacked/index.html

Enjay said:

Because dehacked patches list the differences between the unmodified and the modified exe.

Since version 2.3 DeHackEd patches are text files containing the differences. But earlier versions used binary patches which contained everything (e.g. a dump of the whole things table).

I'm not sure that helps Zom-B if he doesn't have the original EXE.

My DeHackEd->DDF converter can read the old binary patches, so if there was a DDF->Decorate converter somewhere that might be a solution.

Zom-B: so, you are saying that you have the modified exe and the unmodified Doom2.exe? If so, what I described will work for certain. You just need to check dehacked.ini that the names for the two exes match those of the ones you have. If you have an unmodified copy of the dehacked.ini supplied with dehacked 3.0, then those names will be doom2.exe and doomhack.exe.

If you don't in fact have the original Doom2.exe (and don't have an original disk from which you can get it, or else only have Collectors Edition, which is no use for this purpose) by downloading the shareware Doom for DOS. Rename the exe as Doom2.exe - it is 100% identical, byte-for-byte.

The only other thing I can think of that might stop this working is if you are using long filenames or long directory names. If so, putting everything in, e.g., c:\doom2 will solve this.

Grazza said:

Zom-B: so, you are saying that you have the modified exe and the unmodified Doom2.exe? If so, what I described will work for certain. You just need to check dehacked.ini that the names for the two exes match those of the ones you have. If you have an unmodified copy of the dehacked.ini supplied with dehacked 3.0, then those names will be doom2.exe and doomhack.exe.

I'll try that.

Hmm. At first I thought DeHacked wasn't for download anymore, and I can't find it with the DW search. Googling the entire site didn't help either. After some more search I finally found it. It's not surprising that I didn;t find it before considering that it is listed under "dhe31a" and the description is "..."!

It worked! Thanks

The weird name is a consequence of DeHackEd being short for "De (the) Hack Editor". DHE was a common abbreviation for the program itself, despite the patches being .deh and coming to be referred to as DEH patches. The "..." is due to the idgames archive only being able to parse DOOM Level Template-based files.

Quasar said:
The weird name is a consequence of DeHackEd being short for "De (the) Hack Editor".

(The) Doom.exe Hack Editor

DHE was a common abbreviation for the program itself, despite the patches being .deh and coming to be referred to as DEH patches.

(The) Doom(.exe) Hack Editor
Doom.Exe Hack (patch file)

Here's a video of the DEH in question: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zp7V70jxBvs (I hate it that Fraps only records 30 seconds)

myk said:

(The) Doom.exe Hack Editor

(The) Doom(.exe) Hack Editor
Doom.Exe Hack (patch file)

Well I had the right idea :P