Awesome

<h1 align="center"> Windows User Space Emulator <br> <a href="https://github.com/momo5502/emulator?tab=GPL-2.0-1-ov-file"><img src="https://img.shields.io/github/license/momo5502/emulator?color=00B0F8"/></a> <a href="https://github.com/momo5502/emulator/actions"><img src="https://img.shields.io/github/actions/workflow/status/momo5502/emulator/build.yml?branch=main&label=build"/></a> <a href="https://github.com/momo5502/emulator/issues"><img src="https://img.shields.io/github/issues/momo5502/emulator?color=F8B000"/></a> <img src="https://img.shields.io/github/commit-activity/m/momo5502/emulator?color=FF3131"/> </h1>

A high-performance Windows process emulator that operates at syscall level, providing full control over process execution through comprehensive hooking capabilities.

Built in C++ and powered by the Unicorn Engine.

Key Features

🔄 Syscall-Level Emulation
- Instead of reimplementing Windows APIs, the emulator operates at the syscall level, allowing it to leverage existing system DLLs
📝 Advanced Memory Management
- Supports Windows-specific memory types including reserved, committed, built on top of Unicorn's memory management
📦 Complete PE Loading
- Handles executable and DLL loading with proper memory mapping, relocations, and TLS
⚡ Exception Handling
- Implements Windows structured exception handling (SEH) with proper exception dispatcher and unwinding support
🧵 Threading Support
- Provides a scheduled (round-robin) threading model
💾 State Management
- Supports both full state serialization and fast in-memory snapshots
💻 Debugging Interface
- Implements GDB serial protocol for integration with common debugging tools (IDA Pro, GDB, LLDB, VS Code, ...)

Perfect for security research, malware analysis, and DRM research where fine-grained control over process execution is required.

[!NOTE]
The project is still in a very early, prototypy state. The code still needs a lot of cleanup and many features and syscalls need to be implemented. However, constant progress is being made :)

Preview

YouTube Overview

Click <a href="https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1pha4tFfDMpVzJ_ehJJ21SA_HAWkufQBVYQvh1IFhVls/edit">here</a> for the slides.

Build Instructions

Prerequisites

Windows 64-bit (see Issue 17 for cross-platform status)
CMake
Git

Getting Started

Clone the repository with submodules:

git clone https://github.com/momo5502/emulator.git
cd emulator
git submodule update --init --recursive

Run the following commands in an x64 Development Command Prompt

Visual Studio 2022

cmake --preset=vs2022

Solution will be generated at build/vs2022/emulator.sln

Ninja

Debug build:

cmake --workflow --preset=debug

Release build:

cmake --workflow --preset=release

Running Tests

The project uses CTest for testing. Choose your preferred method:

Visual Studio:

Build the RUN_TESTS target

Ninja:

cd build/release  # or build/debug
ctest