How to edit a titlebar from a dll?

[caligula]

Hey, I was wondering how you can permanently edit a title bar from a dll? I know the dll in question, and have tried numerous ways of editing it on various peoples recommendations, but nothing has worked. Also googled some methods which was unsurprisingly useless. Tried visual studio (but of course it's not in IL, some other stuff that was never going to work, and a hex editor. I can find a great deal of things in the dll, but none of them are the title bar. Saw another post from 2012 on here, but i'm not convinced it would solve my problem. I don't want a script that changes it, rather a permanent alteration. I'm stumped. Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

[caligula]

I found how out how to find said text in the title bar. It's been changed. I used ildasm and opened it there. How would I go about making this back into a DLL? thanks!

[caligula]

To clarify, I used ildasm to dump it, find the titlebar, change it, and now I cant make the dumped text document back into the dll. I saved it as a .dll but its completely different and 8x bigger. no idea whats wrong with it or how to reverse the dump? compiling maybe? not too sure what to call it, but making a dll that matches the original with the only difference being the title bar text ive altered

[Ath]

Without the original source of the dll it is close to impossible to re-create the dll.
The only viable option of changing that title is to grab a hex editor, and change that title, with the restriction you have to keep the current length as the max. length, optionally filling with spaces or 0s at the end when the new title is shorter.

[caligula]

Thanks! So when I go to edit it, it warns me it'll change file size. Will this screw up the program? Sorry if these are all stupid questions I am extremely new to anything like this, and apparently an idiot. Really appreciate your response though <3

[caligula]

It's all finished and works perfectly. Thank you. <3

[KodeZwerg]

Library Titlebar???
So I guess whatever app you are starting it uses a library as a container and maybe even create a Window-like application out of it but per se a Library does not have anything visual where you can modify a Caption.
Even that you already solved your problem the proper way would not to patch the binary, the proper way would be to write a small loader that patches the memory on the fly while app is running by doing a simple search for a Window and continue with other Api calls to modify the content in whatever way you like, possible is everything from a coders point of view.

[kanesmith]

Permanently editing a title bar from a DLL is complex and depends heavily on the specific DLL and its structure. Hex editing may not suffice, and injecting code without recompiling risks instability. While 2012 methods might be outdated, consider a DLL hooking approach intercepting title change messages or resource modification via Win32 APIs. Remember, modifying commercial software might violate licenses, so tread carefully.

[Alexander Savage]

That's a tricky one! Editing a DLL's title bar permanently can be a real pain. Since you've tried the usual methods, maybe the title isn't directly stored as a simple string. Could it be dynamically generated or pulled from another resource within the DLL? Have you considered using a resource editor specifically designed for Windows DLLs? Sometimes those can reveal things a hex editor misses. Makes me think of games like Snow Rider 3D, where the title is just a small detail but so important for the experience! Good luck – hope you crack it!

[erpens]

A DLL cannot directly edit a window’s title bar because the title bar is owned and controlled by the main application window created by the executable, not by the DLL. To change the title text from a DLL, the DLL must first obtain the window handle (HWND) of the target window, either by receiving it from the main application (recommended) or by locating it using Windows API functions such as `GetForegroundWindow` or `FindWindow`. Once the DLL has the correct window handle, it can call the Windows API function `SetWindowText` to update the title bar. In short, a DLL can modify the title bar only after it gets access to the window handle and uses the appropriate Windows API call.