GwDressUp

I'm 99% sure there's no installation required to run the .exe, you just open Guild Wars and open the .exe.

No one wants "Anet <3's this program, Ooo", but perhaps an endorsement of, "As long as you use the original program in its original state for its original purpose, you will not have your account banned", as much as TexMod has been given a pass. It shouldn't be such a giant favor to have the ability to see your armor and dye choices without spending hundreds of plat.

As of 1159AM, 12-06-2011 the MD5 has remained the same as was previously reported. Windows users can download a checksum verifier from support.microsoft.com (Article: 841290)

MD5: 3107c2e493c03a7eb05b576420d58a99

PS: No, I haven't run it until someone from ArenaNet confirms it's not an offense. If that day never comes, the program will be collecting digital dust on one of my drives.

Does it alert you when gw.exe connects to the Internet? No? Then it won't when another program piggybacks on gw.exe.

Do not be happy that your antivirus (or firewall, or whatever) program didn't show any alert about gwdressup.exe. A really good security program or feature would have screamed murder at the sight of one program reaching inside another and doing stuff with it. Or it would have been simply disallowed -- and gwdressup.exe would not work.

Side rant (skip if you don't care): firewalls have got to be one of the most misunderstood pieces of technology ever, when it comes to IT security. Whatever you're thinking about your firewall, it's probably not true. They're a tool meant to manipulate network packets at a low level. They weren't meant to be used to make up for lack of proper security in neither operating systems nor individual programs. But because such problems are abundant, they've become a sort of go-to universal solution. Which is about as effective as using duct-tape to treat a hole in the skull.

It's not about damage. A smart parasitic piece of software will never do anything to draw attention.

It's about using an already running program, which you already gave access and priviledges to, for its own purposes. gw.exe is already known to your system, the fact it connects to the internet is known and allowed. Since we're not being asked to run gwdressup.exe before entering the password we can [maybe] rule out either keylogging or sniffing the password.

But it doesn't change the fact that when gwdressup.exe runs, it reaches inside gw.exe and uses it. And gw.exe at that point is fully acknowledged and allowed on your system AND authenticated to GW servers. Meaning an evil program can (pure hypothetical example) tell gw.exe to show you the 'connection failed' dialogue, while it tells your character to go merch everything, or to trade everything to Bot Number Seven in a certain outpost.

Now, that's probably not what gwdressup.exe does. But until I see some kind of trustworthy confirmation, I'm not about to put my entire account at risk (either from hijacking or from an ANet ban) just so I can gape at some armors I'm not gonna buy anyway.

someone tell me if this site is legit.

If the file gets changed yes it does, like when the program gets patched(it even warns me when the gw.tmp files gets changed). And if it changes in anyway while running i'll get an alert.
Viruses(general catchall term) work in a few ways when targeting a specific program or process. They'll either directly infect the exe in which case if you have a decent commercial software firewall or antivirus(if it's already a known virus) you'll get alerted like with LnS that the file has been changed. Or they'll sit around and inject themselves into the process when it is running. Injecting does exactly what it says on the tin, it needs to find an unused part of the process's memory space to store the code it wants to be run. Then it needs to know a specific piece of code that gets run a lot with a big enough cap in it. This usually requires the removal of one/some instructions and a jmp [our dodgy code] NOP NOP(depending on how big the removed instruction was) being insert to direct the program flow, and then well i won't go into all the boring details about keeping the stack and registers as they were before running the dodgy code and returning control back to the original program without alerting it(this is how cracks for games do their thing 99% of the time to circumvent protections). But basically this won't happen with GWDressUp, this is way out of the scope of .NET ;p and the very nature of MMOs is that they are patch often, which means updating the virus for each patch and lets face it if anyone was really that bothered then WoW would have been hit long long ago, but hasn't been, it's just standard keyloggers/hacked forum user databases(most people use the same username and password everywhere) which result in lost accounts.
And LnS does catch texmod in case you were wondering.

Again this goes back to the quality of the security software you use, you get what you pay for. Plus it helps to know what to look out for and be very careful(just use your brain really, never click anything on a google ad down the side or up the top in the yellow box!) what you look at on the net. My brother for example is always getting his machine infected because of his time spent on gentlemen's special interest sites and i have to go clean it up his machine that is...

The program works, does exactly what it says it does and my computer hasn't and isn't going to blow up. Also I already know no-one would ever be banned for using it, are you guys insane? Stop being so criminally untrusting and caring so deeply about your GW accounts...

Thank you to the dev for this, excellent idea and it will be extremely useful for me at least.

Just wanna say that I use it too. I have scanned it with AVG and for those who have or know AVG it is a nazi and asks you to accept anything(Ofc unless you take the thingy down) even every damn file inside an installation file. It always find trojans when they start up. I've not have problems yet but i'll try check GwDressUp a little more.

I just used my trash account, made pvp chars that have the same appearance as the characters I want to see tweaked and customised them. It's rly great to see them in all possible armor combos.

Downloaded! My wife is gonna love this! She can spend hours in the character creation screens and never actually make a character. Now that she can play barbie doll with her actual characters, I don't think she will get anything done from now on. Thanks Argos!

Program looks safe.
Will come back and tell you if I get a perma. ban within the next day or two.

I used it, but after running it thought about it being a bad idea to use on my main account. The alternate account is a good idea, I'll probably stick with that next time I need a preview, a good program none the less.

Looks like a useful program, but would like technical details on how exactly it interacts with the GW client before I commit to using it.

used it since it came out, no ban what-so-ever , scanned with AVG+norton, its safe.
Also, why would this be bannable ?, It works just as texmod, it doesnt give you any help in game (though having an lvl 1 monk with obby+chaos in pre was fun when trolling ally!)

Has anybody Considered Talking to Gaile Grey asking of she could Contact somebody to Take a Look at such Programme? I know Anet already say "They Don't Allow 3rd Party Programmes or Programmes that affect the .exe File"

So does this Dress up Work Pretty Much Like texmod?

check the youtube link at the gwdressup page and you'll see
(if ur that paranoid that u dont eaven dare to look at an yt link..gawh)

Noo i've Watched the Video and it seems Just like Texmod only the fact you can Actually wear the Armour Where as Texmod edits the textures rather then you choosing what armour you want to wear.

Just Curious if Its best to use on an Alt account or Just use it. I'm Guessing it Doesn't Interfere with .exe File?

Thank you SO much!

I have been waiting for this sort of thing for almost my entire Guild Wars career. My hat is off to everyone who worked on this!

Sadly, it still didn't help me decide between the norn armor and elite enchanters for my Mesmer's domination set :x.

My computer automatically scans every file and this came up clean, but I'm willing to bet this is against the rules. GW Estimator has been taken down (then put back up under a new domain) several times because it goes against the rules by recording information in the game. You can tell that this is no ordinary texmod due to the fact that you run it while already on GW (rather than starting GW through it), and it shows on the top of the program your character name and profession. This means that it's actually receiving information from the game. Seem like its running similarly to GW Estimator.

This is really cool, I wish I'd known about it sooner because I'd bought two pairs of shoes on a character and didn't like either of them before deciding what I finally wanted with this tool. However I won't use it anymore if it's against the rules, I would like to know.

I'm standing besides the sidelines. This is too good to be true.

Best work ever.

Just to be clear, this program does not affect how other characters will see you. If you changed your armor to black obsidian in kamadan no one will see it. It purely works graphically for your machine. I also noted some typos in the picker lists (i.e. Norn gauntlets instead of norn robes in the torso list).
What I want to know is can other NPC armors be included in the picker lists? I would kill for White Mantle warrior armor!

just because the program itself isn't a virus/spyware doesn't mean your account isn't at risk

has anyone seen the source code? until you know the method the program utilizes to do what it does, you can't be certain dhuum won't eventually come for you. remember the .exe that allowed you to have a god aura on only your screen among other emotes...?

however, this sort of "feature" should have been implemented by anet a long, long time ago via web or wiki. yes, they show the separate armor pieces in individual wiki screenshots, but a 360 degree customizable armor/dye java/flash applet for the website would have been amazing a couple years ago.

after reading through all of the previous arguments... and everyone's silly excuses as to why this program is safe... i would like you all to read this one line.. and seriously think about the depth of this comment in your heads for a good five minutes. "not five seconds... five minutes...!"

if you can't honestly say to yourself, "sheesh this program must be altering the gw data file in some way or at least receiving data from it... enough to be able to read my character's name... after i logged into gw ahead of time... this has got to be a hack"

also if you can't honestly say to yourself, "if this program can tap into the data file and receive this data... is it storing it somewhere else as well...???"

i just thought i would put in my two cents

I posted a request on Gaile's talk page as she seems to be the only person who might respond. Because this program requires access to the gw.exe file I won't use it on my account until someone says it's ok to use.

Virus-scans are not the end-all, be-all of security. Anyone who thinks, "well 10 people on Guru said it's good so I'm using it too", might be in for a personal visitation from Dhuum or a gold-seller. Trying to get your account back from NCSoft is nightmare enough.

And yes, it's sad that WoW has tons of additions like this, apps for your phone, and customer support that restores your items / doesn't treat you like you're a jerk for bothering them. I have personal reasons to stay away from Blizzard's products but I have to admit their support far outshines NCSoft.

Gaile, if you're reading this, sorry to have to put you back into the role of Community Liaison, but you're the one person we can actually turn to.

Looks very interesting, though there is reason for caution in any third-party application downloaded for GW.

As for Gaile, she might be a little busy in her new role on the official support forum. I can't say whether this topic would be accepted there as they won't support it, and they need to deal with actual support issues there.

i wouldnt trust anything this guy puts out. he personally alters things in his favor. ive tested his website and he is corrupt. I spammed an item in the outpost at certain price for weeks and it never showed up on the site. then i spam it for 2 days at half the price then it was showing up. he alters things and trys to control the price of items. for example when the 6th year tonics showed up he goes in and deleted the posts of the people trying to get a decent price for the item cause its very new, and he would only keep the posts that were like half of what the items are really worth. and he did it again with the strongbox's tonics and mini's this guy is not to be trusted. also i wouldn't trust his programs to be clean. just cause ur little default antivirus doesnt detect it doesnt mean anything. cause its a trojan/keylogger and we all know those can barely be detected properly these days.

Sounds more like a conspiration theory IMO.

One of the coolest things i think is that you can wear glasses and a headpiece at the same time

But once you do that, you cant seem to remove it lol

Are you aware that ONLY american district 1 is logged? Are you SURE you were in district 1 when you were spamming your item? I think this might just be a case of lack of information in how his estimator collects data.

Just change your headpiece.

Just to clarify, change your ACTUAL headpiece.

lol i only stand in kama dis 1. and trust me on this. try it for yourself

I keep seeing these argos threads and ppl asking same question ( is it safe etc ) and still no 1 can really answer.
Before ppl say no viruses detected etc etc - If you were a sad coder who decided it is fun to make viruses .. wouldnt you design a virus/keylogger that is invisible or has a time delay as i know i would.
Also with all anti v progs they have to recognise the virus to begin with otherwise we get them slipping thru.
Also we dont know anets stance on this program - many have said it looks like it injects the exe file and im guessing if detected by anet they may see it as bot and ban.
So in a nutshell untill both anets said its ok to use ( they can tell the difference between it and a bot ) and we know its 100% safe im staying away - best to be safe than sorry i feel.

2nd, just cause a virus scanner tells you it's clean, does not mean it actually is. And if you want to do virus tests, the only place I would trust are VirusTotal or VirusChief since they use like 40 scanners. And here are those test results (I only downloaded the exe, I have not run it):

http://www.virustotal.com/file-scan/...e87-1308308636

http://www.viruschief.com/report.htm... 2e4607db7720 (not sure if any overlap)

I was just hit by a fake AV/trojan dropper yesterday doing nothing... I got it from what looked like a clean news site that may be been infected (it was a top link on Google news when I searched for something). Didn't install any exes, it just wasn't in NOD32's definitions at all. I don't know if the method of delivery itself was zero day as I am pretty up to date on everything else, but it was odd. Other vendors recognized the virus though. So it's always good to be cautious first.

I can only repeat myself: even if this program is completely harmless it falls under "modifying gw.exe" which will get you a ban from ArenaNet. Until they say this is tolerated (which I guess they won't) one should refrain from using this.

After reading through the comments, I feel that until Anet say this program can be used legally, I request that my thread be closed/deleted.

Done, PM me for a reopen.