4kdownloader+ Hook

This project is a hook used to modify the behavior of the program 4k Video Downloader Plus.

Purpose

I found it very annoying that 4k Video Downloader Plus opened the browser to display the thank you page after each update. Therefore, I used this hook template to block all system calls to ShellExecuteA and ShellExecuteW. These functions are used to open a link in the default browser.

How It Works

The hook intercepts calls to ShellExecuteA and ShellExecuteW and prevents them from executing if the URL starts with "http". This effectively blocks the program from opening the thank you page in the browser, but still allows opeing video files from inside 4k Video Downloader Plus.

How to use

Inside the 4kdownloaderplus folder, create a new folder named like the .exe file with the ending .plugin . For example 4kvideodownloaderplus.exe.plugins.
Place the compiled DLL file (example_plugin.dll) inside this folder. Then copy the version.dll file into the 4kdownloaderplus folder and use the program as usual.

Recent Updates

According to the patch notes, the developers have recently removed this annoying behavior. However, this hook can still be useful for other purposes or for older versions of the software.

Disclaimer

This project is for educational purposes only. I am not responsible for any harm or damage caused by the use of this hook.

pseudo-version-dll

Original repo: https://github.com/t-mat/pseudo-version-dll

What's this?

This is a Visual Studio 2022 project which generates (pseudo) version.dll. Since it passes all arguments to genuine version.dll, virtually both of them have same functionality as version.dll.

Since many Windows executables load version.dll, you can use this project to add functionalities/hooks/hacks to target executable. This project also provides same functionality for lz32.dll, hid.dll and msimg32.dll.

For hooking purpose, you may also interest in API hook library minhook.

How to build

• Run build-vs2022.bat
• Artifacts will be put under artifacts/
  • If you need, you can rename version.dll to lz32.dll, hid.dll or msimg32.dll.

Test

• Check your target executable by Dependencies.
  • If your target doesn't use version.dll or supported DLLs, you can't use this project.
• Put artifacts/version.dll (or renamed one) into your tareget's directory. Executable and DLL must be put on the same directory.
  • If your target is <PATH>/<TO>/<YOUR>/<TARGET>.exe you must put version.dll in <PATH>/<TO>/<YOUR>/version.dll
• Put artifacts/plugins/example_plugin.dll to <PATH>/<TO>/<YOUR>/<TARGET>.exe.plugins/example_plugin.dll
• Open DebugView
• Run your<TARGET>.exe
  • DebugView shows CreateFileW() activities which is hooked by example_plugin.dll.

Plugin loading rules

• version.dll loads all DLLs which are placed in YOUR-TARGET.exe-PATH/YOUR-TARGET.exe.plugins/.
  • DLLs are loaded from mutiple directories recursively.
    • If directory's or file's name is started with ., they're ignored. e.g. .my-private-dir/, .my-private-file.dll, etc.
  • DLL loading order is decided by std::sort() for std::wstring paths of DLLs.
    • e.g. YOUR-PATH\01\*.dll is loaded before YOUR-PATH\99\*.dll