How do I execute a dll file

Question

I have a DLL file and I want to execute it on Windows  I obtained this DLL file from a challenge site which alleges the DLL should be executed independently

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You can t  execute  a DLL  You can execute functions within the DLL  as explained in the other answers  Although  EXE files and  DLL files are essentially identical in terms of format  the distinguishing feature of an  EXE is that it contains a designated  entry point  to go and do the thing the EXE was created to do  DLLs actually have something similar  but the purpose of the  dll main  is just to perform initialization and not fulfill the primary purpose of the DLL  that is for the  presumably  various other functions it contains   You can execute any of the functions exported by a DLL  assuming you know which one you want to execute  an EXE may contain a whole lot of functions  but one and only one is specially designated to be executed simply by  running  it

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You can execute a function defined in a DLL file by using the rundll command  You can explore the functions available by using Dependency Walker

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DLLs are shared libraries which are used by other windows programs while EXEs are the files which are actually executed and are linked to DLL files so that they can use DLLs  Both are of same format  PE portable executable or format of machine code in windows in simple words   In other words EXEs contain the entry point main  and the DLLs contain the library functions   You cannot execute a file which just contains library functions you can just use them via other programs  But still there are programs like rundll32 exe which provides that entry point and some minimal framework required by DLL functions to be called   The point that I want to make is  you can never execute a DLL file you can just use it s code by providing an entry point through an EXE or some other program

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The following series of steps might be helpful    Open Windows Explorer In the top-left corner  click  Organize  select  Folder and Search Options  Switch to the  View  tab Scroll down and uncheck  Hide file extensions for known file types  Click OK Now find the dll file Right-click on it and select  Rename  Change the extension what comes after the last    and change it to  exe

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It should be mentioned that since it is entirely possible to run DLL s just as any other executable  it has long been considered a security issue  As such  there have been a number of security improvements and registry hacks  sorry no longer have ref-links  that prevents running DLL s from regular user space without extra privileges    As a good example  I recall making these hacks  but since I no longer remember what exactly I did  I can no longer run any DLLs from normal user shell environment  even though starting various Win apps from GUI works just fine   That said  one should definitely read  Dynamic-Link Library Security  and  Best Practices to Prevent DLL Hijacking

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To Run a  dll file  First find out what are functions it is exporting  Dll files will excecute the functions specified in the Export Category  To know what function it is Exporting refer  filealyzer  Application  It will show you the export function under  PE EXPORT  Category  Notedown the function name-- Then open the command prompt Type Rundll32 dllname functionname  dllname--name of your dll   Functionname-- name of the function you found under the PE Export  Note Makesure that your command prompt location is your dll file location

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While many people have pointed out that you can t execute dlls directly and should use rundll32 exe to execute exported functions instead  here is a screenshot of an actual dll file running just like an executable     While you cannot run dll files directly  I suspect it is possible to run them from another process using a WinAPI function CreateProcess   https   msdn microsoft com en-us library windows desktop ms682425 v vs 85  aspx

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To run the functions in a DLL  first find out what those functions are using any PE  Portable Executable  analysis program  e g  Dependency Walker   Then use RUNDLL32 EXE with this syntax    RUNDLL32 EXE  lt dllname gt   lt entrypoint gt   lt optional arguments gt    dllname is the path and name of your dll file  entrypoint is the function name  and optional arguments are the function arguments

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DLL files are not executable in the sense that  EXE  COM  BAT files are executable  so I m not sure what you mean   You can use the Dependency Walker application that comes with the Windows SDK to interrogate a  DLL and see what functions are exported by the file

[windows] How do I execute a *.dll file

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