Crack some exe file - how to remove bytes

Question

Today I am trying to remove some bytes from an EXE file.

Inside the EXE I found a path to a file that the EXE needs to load. I want to change the path, and to do that I have to remove some ../../ characters. When I do that and save the file, it looses its icon and a 'win32 unknow format error' is displayed when I try to execute it.

If I don't remove those bytes but replace them by 0, the icon is not lost, and the file looks right. Yet, the path is incorrect.

So, it looks like when I remove bytes, position of other information inside the file is lost, including resources (the icon). After removeing those bytes, I need to add other 6 bytes, to keep the same size and position of other data. Where should I do that? If I add those bytes at the end of the file, it doesn't work. Could you give me some clues? Thanks!

Answer 1

After removing the ../../ from the start of the string, stick six 0 bytes at the end of the string (I'm assuming you can identify the end manually). That way the offset of everything in the file remains the same. By removing the 6 bytes entirely, the offset of things after the string would change. By replacing the 6 bytes with 0s, the offset of the string would change (it would now really be at wherever it was + 6).