Assembly Obfuscation Woes

Add-in Express™ Support Service
That's what is more important than anything else

Assembly Obfuscation Woes
 
Martin Mizzell


Guest


Hi,

I am using XenoCode to obfuscate an ADX project that uses strong names and the C++ shim. The addin fails to register during installation if I obfuscate it. What's the secret to get this working?

Martin Mizzell
AnointedCS
Posted 14 Jun, 2006 13:54:19 Top
Sergey Grischenko


Add-in Express team


Posts: 7233
Joined: 2004-07-05
Hi Martin.

Please use the ILDASM tool to see what has been changed after the obfuscation process. You shouldn't obfuscate the addinmodule class name as well as names of its public methods required for ADX.
Posted 16 Jun, 2006 04:01:05 Top
Martin Mizzell


Guest


Sergey,

After rolling back my obfuscation preset from "Aggressive" to "Conservative" and ensuring that none of the public methods in the AddinModule are being obfusacated, the addin still refuses to register. Please help as my client is ready for the final build of this product and i cannot release it to them without securing the assemblies.

User added an image
Posted 19 Jun, 2006 16:17:30 Top
Eugene Starostin


Guest


Hello Martin,

We haven't used XenoCode Obfuscator. And we aren't planing to do this.

Sorry, but if you obfuscate your add-in module, it will not work since all COM registered public methods and classes shouldn't be obfuscated. It is not our limitation, it is required by shims.

As I see, there is one solution - to rewrite your shim after your add-in assembly was obfuscated.
Posted 19 Jun, 2006 16:59:09 Top
Martin Mizzell


Guest


What if i were to create another ADX solution that did not use the strong named assemblies? Would that work? Would there be any other side effects?
Posted 19 Jun, 2006 17:38:33 Top
Sergey Grischenko


Add-in Express team


Posts: 7233
Joined: 2004-07-05
Hi Martin.

As far as I see, you obfuscated some .NET types that should be loaded from the 'mscorlib' assembly. Please use the ILDASM tool to control the obfuscation process more correctly.
Posted 20 Jun, 2006 07:57:58 Top