Microsoft follows Valve? (Win2K/NT Source Code Leaked)

I'm with Dead, I think it would be fun to hack around in the source. And in the long run, I think this will be a good thing for Microsoft. They could use a little helpful criticism ;)

Excuse me for being stupid but why can't the OS be disassembled in a disassembler? What language is M$ Written in anyway? Does it matter? I thought all disassemblers showed source in assembly language any way.

im surprised this hasn't happened sooner. about 1 1/2 - 2 years ago a group of kids were partying on ms's network. seems they emailed a bunch of trojans to the workers inside microsoft and some chump ran one. well anyway the reports said they accessed the code for windows. always wondered when we would see it.

another bright side is if the general programming community gets there hands on it there could be some real break threws in third party windows software. right now ms gives some clues to a chosen few ($$$)

Quote:

---

I thought all disassemblers showed source in assembly language any way.

---

IMHO, that's a legitimate question...and a pretty good one.

It can be done, but the problem is the volume of code generated. For example, if I open notepad.exe ( 65 kb) in olly debug, it generates an output file of over 220 pages ( in 12 point font), and the save file is roughly 950 kb, or a little less than 15 times larger. I don't have a clue how many lines of code notepad has, nor do I have any clue how big of a footprint windows os has for sure, but I do remember reading that you need at least 1 gig ( 1.2) of HD space, and I know CD's can be compressed to store that much data, so if we go with the 1.2 gig theory, you would have around 18 gigs of disassembled file.

At roughly 3 pages per KB, you end up with an insanely large output file.

Ok, my math may be way off, but you get the idea... if you want to disassemble windows, you need some idea of where you are going ( a specific .dll for example) in order to pare it down.


EDIT: While I'm thinking of it, there exists code that can fool debuggers, or crash debuggers. (and disassemblers)

http://heim.ifi.uio.no/~mortehu/files.txt
source tree its pretty incomplete by the looks of things but still....

30915 fileslisted. that would be a lot of disassembling.

Even though it will be good for Microsoft in the long run, what about the immediate effects? It doesn't matter how much Windows needs it, the fact is that it's used by the majority the way it is right now. The effects of this could be devastating to the economy, and could force a lot of change everywhere. Even though a stronger operating system will result, things will suck for a lot of people very soon, given that this news is true.

Put on your helmets!

Official MS press;
http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/p...dowssource.asp

Also if you are looking for file name is windows_2000_source_code.zip

well maybe they did it so people would work on developing sploits so they can patch and be secure ;) just my opinion but yes its sad


sorry for spelling :eek:

Greetings,

Big News!

Portion of Microsoft's source code has been leaked on the net.

Read on a see for yourself:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/microsoft/...147563,00.html

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/latestnews...section=latest

http://slashdot.org/articles/04/02/1...id=109&tid=187

Unbelieveable!

Is this a contributing factor for more companies and home users to make the move to open source?

Can this be Microsoft's achilles heal?

I believe it can. This is the precisious code Microsoft's been hiding from the world. Their prized prosession. Their baby. The code to dominate the desktop and server market. All that to be let down to this? Source code out on the web for millions to see.

This source code will get into the wrong hands, like it or not. I suppose the question next will be how fast the Microsoft engineers can spit out the patches and updates to keep corporate loss to the minimal.

I can see this being a big topic. Let's hear everyone's opinions!

Later,