get sh5.exe genericpatcher to work with steam.

sirrawrsalot · 07-21-14, 05:51 PM

Hi

First off, I'm new to these forums so I'm really sorry if I'm being redundant with this information.

I'm really sleepy after a day of work and I just wanted to write down the steps, but I thought that perhaps somebody would like to try this already so instead of cleaning up the steps and keeping the steps for myself another couple of days I'll just publish this rough draft and let you guys have any eventual laughs due to my mistakes.

I will try to clean it up by tomorrow evening or so.

I do appreciate that this is not fun for anybody, so please only do this if you know what you're doing until enough people can confirm that this actually works or if I'm all wrong and making a fool out of myself.
This is kind of like a science experiment, I have results I want you guys to try to reproduce. Thank you for helping me out:

1.
Go download "silent_hunter_5_col_1.02_eu.exe" from:
http://www.4players.de/4players.php/...oad/55318.html

2.
Download & Install: http://legroom.net/scripts/download....=uniextract161

3.
Right click on the "silent_hunter_5_col_1.02_eu.exe" you downloaded in step 1. choose "UniExtract to Subdir", choose "isxunpack extraction" under "Extract Method".

4.
Step 3 should have resulted in a folder called "silent_hunter_5_col_1.02_eu"

5.
Next get your paws on "InstallShield_Cabinet_File_Viewer"

6.
Start program and go to File => Open => "silent_hunter_5_col_1.02_eu\Disk1\data1.hdr"

7.
View => Components

8.
Click on "Game" and then "Files", find sh5.exe in the list.
save it on your desktop.

9.
Start up Steam, right click on "Silent Hunter 5: Battle of the Atlantic" => Properties => local files => Browse Local files.

10.
Find the sh5.exe file in the list and rename it to sh5_steam.exe.

11.
Go to your desktop and rename the sh5.exe file which you extracted from the ubisoft patches cab file to sh5_patched.exe and copy it into your silent hunter 5 folder where the sh5_steam.exe you renamed file resides.

12.
Copy the sh5_patched.exe file so you have 2 of them, and rename one of them sh5.exe

Tadaa

Now you should be able to run the genericpatcher and update your sh5.exe file and when you launch it from steam it wont make a difference since steam is actually only launching uplay, and uplay does not seem to care if you're running a modded file or not.

Im assuming its legal because we are just getting the patch ubi made, so we are not cracking anything. It might go against steams EULA though... but then again I'm not so sure about where things stand in regards to the legality of modifying binary files on a whole. anyway hydrophone works, yay.

edit:
https://twitter.com/steam_support/st...10796128243712
https://twitter.com/deadislandgame/s...96399760142336

...seems like we should be safe.

When things go wrong
If you get an error when trying to run "InstallShield_Cabinet_File_Viewer", please try downloading whatever file its saying that you're missing from here:
Example: http://activex.microsoft.com/controls/vb6/mscomctl.cab
Then extract the cab file and copy the file into your C:\Windows\SysWOW64 [windows 7] or c:\Windows\System32 folder, [for older versions of windows]

Start your terminal (run => cmd.exe) and type
cd<push spacebar>C:\Windows\SysWOW64 or c:\Windows\System32<push Enter key>
The prompt should change to: C:\Windows\SysWOW64 or c:\Windows\System32
Then type:
regsvr32<push spacebar>mscomctl.ocx <push Enter key>

Oh right, so the reason I wanted you to make a backup of the sh5.exe file is two fold, one is so that you can go back to the steam version if you think my idea is stupid. second, sometimes steam will overwrite your .exe file, its not happened to me yet, but i know that if you run "validate my files" it will see that you have modified your file and assume it is broken because its not the same size it knows it should be and overwrite it. So you should be covered in both cases.

Silent Steel · 07-22-14, 03:00 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by sirrawrsalot

Hi

First off, I'm new to these forums so I'm really sorry if I'm being redundant with this information.

This is kind of like a science experiment...

Sure is

If this works it's epic.
I don't run Steam myself but there are many other Kaleuns around that would love this.

Quote:

Im assuming its legal because we are just getting the patch ubi made, so we are not cracking anything. It might go against steams EULA though... but then again I'm not so sure about where things stand in regards to the legality of modifying binary files on a whole. anyway hydrophone works, yay.
[/I]

I do hope it is but as you say - nothing is being cracked.

sirrawrsalot · 07-22-14, 07:03 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Silent Steel

Sure is

If this works it's epic.
I don't run Steam myself but there are many other Kaleuns around that would love this.

I do hope it is but as you say - nothing is being cracked.

I hope somebody gets use of it, I have been playing it for a couple of days now and it seems to work fine.

Also read some threads on the steam forums, and steam seem to be fine with people modding games as long as you dont modify online games and grief, which is not at all what we are doing.

Silent Steel · 07-23-14, 12:29 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by sirrawrsalot

I hope somebody gets use of it, I have been playing it for a couple of days now and it seems to work fine.

Also read some threads on the steam forums, and steam seem to be fine with people modding games as long as you dont modify online games and grief, which is not at all what we are doing.

I'm impressed.
Try to get this 'Steam method' as a sticky. Contact Neal Stevens.

Keep up the good work.

THEBERBSTER · 07-28-14, 06:31 PM

Hi sirrawrsalot

I will this to my

Step By Step Tutorials & How To Do It

http://www.subsim.com/radioroom/showthread.php?t=211804

Added to my Tutorial Post #125

Peter

Balu0 · 08-18-14, 07:25 AM

Nice! I was looking for something like this. I bougth the steam version a few days ago and was banging my head to teh wall because i could not use the patcher.

I will try this as soon as I get home from work and tell you the resoults.

even if it wont work THANK YOU FOR THE EFFORT!

Balu0 · 08-18-14, 01:26 PM

Works Like a Charm !

TheDarkWraith · 08-18-14, 10:18 PM

Sounds like I need to automate this process into the Generic Patcher

Can someone send me their steam version of the sh5.exe? I need to read it's signature in order to automate this.

Balu0 · 08-19-14, 07:05 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by TheDarkWraith

Sounds like I need to automate this process into the Generic Patcher

Can someone send me their steam version of the sh5.exe? I need to read it's signature in order to automate this.

I can help you with that, drop my a private where where should I send it.

THEBERBSTER · 08-19-14, 08:55 AM

I am not a Steam user but this will be great news for those who are and will have something exciting to look forward to.

Peter

gap · 08-19-14, 04:24 PM

Interestig thread.

A while back I had discovered with the help of a subsim mate who owns the steam varsion of the game, that replacing the Steam executable with the regular one, was enough to get the generic pather to work, while retaining intact game functionalities (including copy protection and tonnage awarding). I couldn't make the discovery fully public, as this method would have involved the sharing of SH5.exe by a private user, and I wasn't sure that Ubisoft would have considered it a legitimate method.
Apllying to the official patch, wich was made freely available by Ubisoft itself, the legitimacy of the new method suggested by the OP should definitely be out of question, though its application might be out of the reach of computer iliterates.
Automating the process into the generic patcher would be, no doubt, a further step forward. Nonetheless, I think that an unpacked version of the patch 1.12 is already available on the web. While TDW is working on his automated steam patcher, maybe some Steam user could try and replace his exe with the one of the unpacked patch.

TheDarkWraith · 08-20-14, 12:06 AM

I figured out how to have my app extract everything from the v1.2 exe patch for the game. This extraction yields the InstallShield setup.exe and supporting files in the folder Disk1. Since I now had access to the InstallShield files I could 'see' what they were doing (or not doing in this case!). The files showed that the installer for v1.2 is NOT checking to see if the Silent Hunter 5 folder already exists nor is it checking to see if any of the files it needs to update exist. All it cares about is whether or not the required registry entries exist. Excellent, lets exploit this vulnerability!!

Now I did the below on my computer and everything worked just like I thought it would so it should work flawlessly on those with Steam installations also.

This is for those who have the Steam version of the game!

Find your \Silent Hunter 5 folder and move it to your desktop and rename it 'Silent Hunter 5 save' (cut it so it no longer exists at it's current location but rather on your desktop). Make a copy of steam's sh5.exe and name it sh5-steam.exe. Run the official v1.2 patch from Ubicrap saying yes you want to install even though you are already at v1.2. If everything goes to plan then another Silent Hunter 5 folder should've been created where your old one existed. In there you'll find the non-steam sh5.exe

Copy the non-steam sh5.exe to your 'Silent Hunter 5 save' folder on your desktop. Make a copy of this new sh5.exe and name it sh5-ubi.exe. Delete the new Silent Hunter 5 folder that was created by the official 1.2 patch. Copy the 'Silent Hunter 5 save' folder to where the new Silent Hunter 5 folder was and rename it back to 'Silent Hunter 5'. Run the Generic Patcher and see if you can patch the sh5.exe.

If this all works then I will have the app automate everything so you simply click one button and it does everything for you

Balu0 · 08-25-14, 01:53 PM

Got one, Thx

---------------
OK my only problem left is that the uplay config still starts steam when I hit play because it is still configured that way.

There is a file here:
Ubisoft Game Launcher\cache\configuration\configurations

Yyou can open it with notepad.

Anyone not steam user would be kind enough to copy paste here the the SH 5 part so I can paste it in my config? It might work.

ty

Dragonlord47 · 09-25-14, 04:26 AM

Well I was going to give this a try because I have the steam version and really want the Generic Patcher. However, Ubisoft does not download or install the v1.2 patch onto steam. Steam downloads the patch. I tried the way TheDarkWraith said to do it and ubisoft just starts up steam then steam says the folder isn't available (because its been moved to desktop)

So then I tried it the way sirrawrsalot said to do it and I can not find

5.
Next get your paws on "InstallShield_Cabinet_File_Viewer"

Any where. not as a free download or as a purchase software. I find help me files every where but nothing linking to where I can download for free or purchase. Nothing. What sucks is all I need is that SH5.exe v1.2 and I am pretty sure it would work.

I have another game through steam that required me to do that (just change the Steams .exe with the non steam .exe and steam still saw the game and ran. Is there an easier way to get the one file that I need to test this.

Any help would be great and thanks everyone for spending so much time getting a broken game to work so great.

Echolot · 09-25-14, 05:00 AM

Hello Dragonlord47.

Check your pm box, please.

07-28-14, 06:31 PM	#5
THEBERBSTER Growing Old Disgracefully Join Date: Dec 2012 Location: Hythe - Southampton Posts: 9,609 Downloads: 1133 Uploads: 0	Hi sirrawrsalot I will this to my Step By Step Tutorials & How To Do It http://www.subsim.com/radioroom/showthread.php?t=211804 Added to my Tutorial Post #125 Peter __________________ LSH3-2015 <> TUTORIALS <> ALL YOU NEED TO KNOW <> ALL IN ONE PLACE SH4 <> TUTORIALS <> HOW TO DO IT <> INFORMATION <> DOWNLOAD LINKS SH5 <> TUTORIALS <> HOW TO DO IT <> INFORMATION <> DOWNLOAD LINKS Always Here To Help A Fellow 'Subber' \| Need An Answer to A Question Just Send Me A PM Last edited by THEBERBSTER; 08-18-14 at 02:21 PM.

08-19-14, 08:55 AM	#10
THEBERBSTER Growing Old Disgracefully Join Date: Dec 2012 Location: Hythe - Southampton Posts: 9,609 Downloads: 1133 Uploads: 0	I am not a Steam user but this will be great news for those who are and will have something exciting to look forward to. Peter __________________ LSH3-2015 <> TUTORIALS <> ALL YOU NEED TO KNOW <> ALL IN ONE PLACE SH4 <> TUTORIALS <> HOW TO DO IT <> INFORMATION <> DOWNLOAD LINKS SH5 <> TUTORIALS <> HOW TO DO IT <> INFORMATION <> DOWNLOAD LINKS Always Here To Help A Fellow 'Subber' \| Need An Answer to A Question Just Send Me A PM

08-19-14, 04:24 PM	#11
gap Navy Seal Join Date: Jan 2011 Location: CJ8937 Posts: 8,215 Downloads: 793 Uploads: 10	Interestig thread. A while back I had discovered with the help of a subsim mate who owns the steam varsion of the game, that replacing the Steam executable with the regular one, was enough to get the generic pather to work, while retaining intact game functionalities (including copy protection and tonnage awarding). I couldn't make the discovery fully public, as this method would have involved the sharing of SH5.exe by a private user, and I wasn't sure that Ubisoft would have considered it a legitimate method. Apllying to the official patch, wich was made freely available by Ubisoft itself, the legitimacy of the new method suggested by the OP should definitely be out of question, though its application might be out of the reach of computer iliterates. Automating the process into the generic patcher would be, no doubt, a further step forward. Nonetheless, I think that an unpacked version of the patch 1.12 is already available on the web. While TDW is working on his automated steam patcher, maybe some Steam user could try and replace his exe with the one of the unpacked patch. __________________ _____________________ \|May the Force be with you!\| ...\/

08-25-14, 01:53 PM	#13
Balu0 A-ganger Join Date: Mar 2007 Posts: 79 Downloads: 180 Uploads: 0	Got one, Thx --------------- OK my only problem left is that the uplay config still starts steam when I hit play because it is still configured that way. There is a file here: Ubisoft Game Launcher\cache\configuration\configurations Yyou can open it with notepad. Anyone not steam user would be kind enough to copy paste here the the SH 5 part so I can paste it in my config? It might work. ty Last edited by Balu0; 08-26-14 at 04:31 AM.

07-21-14, 05:51 PM	#1
sirrawrsalot Swabbie Join Date: Jul 2014 Posts: 7 Downloads: 18 Uploads: 0	get sh5.exe genericpatcher to work with steam. Hi First off, I'm new to these forums so I'm really sorry if I'm being redundant with this information. I'm really sleepy after a day of work and I just wanted to write down the steps, but I thought that perhaps somebody would like to try this already so instead of cleaning up the steps and keeping the steps for myself another couple of days I'll just publish this rough draft and let you guys have any eventual laughs due to my mistakes. I will try to clean it up by tomorrow evening or so. I do appreciate that this is not fun for anybody, so please only do this if you know what you're doing until enough people can confirm that this actually works or if I'm all wrong and making a fool out of myself. This is kind of like a science experiment, I have results I want you guys to try to reproduce. Thank you for helping me out: 1. Go download "silent_hunter_5_col_1.02_eu.exe" from: http://www.4players.de/4players.php/...oad/55318.html 2. Download & Install: http://legroom.net/scripts/download....=uniextract161 3. Right click on the "silent_hunter_5_col_1.02_eu.exe" you downloaded in step 1. choose "UniExtract to Subdir", choose "isxunpack extraction" under "Extract Method". 4. Step 3 should have resulted in a folder called "silent_hunter_5_col_1.02_eu" 5. Next get your paws on "InstallShield_Cabinet_File_Viewer" 6. Start program and go to File => Open => "silent_hunter_5_col_1.02_eu\Disk1\data1.hdr" 7. View => Components 8. Click on "Game" and then "Files", find sh5.exe in the list. save it on your desktop. 9. Start up Steam, right click on "Silent Hunter 5: Battle of the Atlantic" => Properties => local files => Browse Local files. 10. Find the sh5.exe file in the list and rename it to sh5_steam.exe. 11. Go to your desktop and rename the sh5.exe file which you extracted from the ubisoft patches cab file to sh5_patched.exe and copy it into your silent hunter 5 folder where the sh5_steam.exe you renamed file resides. 12. Copy the sh5_patched.exe file so you have 2 of them, and rename one of them sh5.exe Tadaa Now you should be able to run the genericpatcher and update your sh5.exe file and when you launch it from steam it wont make a difference since steam is actually only launching uplay, and uplay does not seem to care if you're running a modded file or not. Im assuming its legal because we are just getting the patch ubi made, so we are not cracking anything. It might go against steams EULA though... but then again I'm not so sure about where things stand in regards to the legality of modifying binary files on a whole. anyway hydrophone works, yay. edit: https://twitter.com/steam_support/st...10796128243712 https://twitter.com/deadislandgame/s...96399760142336 ...seems like we should be safe. When things go wrong If you get an error when trying to run "InstallShield_Cabinet_File_Viewer", please try downloading whatever file its saying that you're missing from here: Example: http://activex.microsoft.com/controls/vb6/mscomctl.cab Then extract the cab file and copy the file into your C:\Windows\SysWOW64 [windows 7] or c:\Windows\System32 folder, [for older versions of windows] Start your terminal (run => cmd.exe) and type cd<push spacebar>C:\Windows\SysWOW64 or c:\Windows\System32<push Enter key> The prompt should change to: C:\Windows\SysWOW64 or c:\Windows\System32 Then type: regsvr32<push spacebar>mscomctl.ocx <push Enter key> Oh right, so the reason I wanted you to make a backup of the sh5.exe file is two fold, one is so that you can go back to the steam version if you think my idea is stupid. second, sometimes steam will overwrite your .exe file, its not happened to me yet, but i know that if you run "validate my files" it will see that you have modified your file and assume it is broken because its not the same size it knows it should be and overwrite it. So you should be covered in both cases. Last edited by sirrawrsalot; 07-21-14 at 08:02 PM.

08-18-14, 07:25 AM	#6
Balu0 A-ganger Join Date: Mar 2007 Posts: 79 Downloads: 180 Uploads: 0	Nice! I was looking for something like this. I bougth the steam version a few days ago and was banging my head to teh wall because i could not use the patcher. I will try this as soon as I get home from work and tell you the resoults. even if it wont work THANK YOU FOR THE EFFORT!

08-18-14, 01:26 PM	#7
Balu0 A-ganger Join Date: Mar 2007 Posts: 79 Downloads: 180 Uploads: 0	Works Like a Charm !

08-18-14, 10:18 PM	#8
TheDarkWraith Black Magic Join Date: Jun 2007 Posts: 11,962 Downloads: 147 Uploads: 5	Sounds like I need to automate this process into the Generic Patcher Can someone send me their steam version of the sh5.exe? I need to read it's signature in order to automate this.

08-20-14, 12:06 AM	#12
TheDarkWraith Black Magic Join Date: Jun 2007 Posts: 11,962 Downloads: 147 Uploads: 5	I figured out how to have my app extract everything from the v1.2 exe patch for the game. This extraction yields the InstallShield setup.exe and supporting files in the folder Disk1. Since I now had access to the InstallShield files I could 'see' what they were doing (or not doing in this case!). The files showed that the installer for v1.2 is NOT checking to see if the Silent Hunter 5 folder already exists nor is it checking to see if any of the files it needs to update exist. All it cares about is whether or not the required registry entries exist. Excellent, lets exploit this vulnerability!! Now I did the below on my computer and everything worked just like I thought it would so it should work flawlessly on those with Steam installations also. This is for those who have the Steam version of the game! Find your \Silent Hunter 5 folder and move it to your desktop and rename it 'Silent Hunter 5 save' (cut it so it no longer exists at it's current location but rather on your desktop). Make a copy of steam's sh5.exe and name it sh5-steam.exe. Run the official v1.2 patch from Ubicrap saying yes you want to install even though you are already at v1.2. If everything goes to plan then another Silent Hunter 5 folder should've been created where your old one existed. In there you'll find the non-steam sh5.exe Copy the non-steam sh5.exe to your 'Silent Hunter 5 save' folder on your desktop. Make a copy of this new sh5.exe and name it sh5-ubi.exe. Delete the new Silent Hunter 5 folder that was created by the official 1.2 patch. Copy the 'Silent Hunter 5 save' folder to where the new Silent Hunter 5 folder was and rename it back to 'Silent Hunter 5'. Run the Generic Patcher and see if you can patch the sh5.exe. If this all works then I will have the app automate everything so you simply click one button and it does everything for you Last edited by TheDarkWraith; 08-20-14 at 12:37 AM.

09-25-14, 04:26 AM	#14
Dragonlord47 Watch Join Date: Sep 2014 Posts: 15 Downloads: 60 Uploads: 0	Well I was going to give this a try because I have the steam version and really want the Generic Patcher. However, Ubisoft does not download or install the v1.2 patch onto steam. Steam downloads the patch. I tried the way TheDarkWraith said to do it and ubisoft just starts up steam then steam says the folder isn't available (because its been moved to desktop) So then I tried it the way sirrawrsalot said to do it and I can not find 5. Next get your paws on "InstallShield_Cabinet_File_Viewer" Any where. not as a free download or as a purchase software. I find help me files every where but nothing linking to where I can download for free or purchase. Nothing. What sucks is all I need is that SH5.exe v1.2 and I am pretty sure it would work. I have another game through steam that required me to do that (just change the Steams .exe with the non steam .exe and steam still saw the game and ran. Is there an easier way to get the one file that I need to test this. Any help would be great and thanks everyone for spending so much time getting a broken game to work so great.

09-25-14, 05:00 AM	#15
Echolot Seasoned Skipper Join Date: Mar 2010 Location: Berlin, Germany Posts: 718 Downloads: 575 Uploads: 0	Hello Dragonlord47. Check your pm box, please.