Socket Spy

Socket Spy is a comprehensive and efficient software solution that was designed to assist you in trapping system calls and verifying the behavior of any Windows applications, such as Internet Explorer, as well as third-party apps or even the ones developed by you.

The utility sets a specific amount of breakpoints for system function DLLs, also calling them softpoints, working with a variety of dynamic link libraries, not just WSock32.dll.

When debugging a program, it will encounter these softpoints and issue an event message, which is then captured and displayed by Socket Spy. Depending on their number, this process may be quite slow.

However, you have the possibility of customizing the default list of soft breakpoints, in order to shorten the process. This can be done from the ‘Options’ menu, by selecting the ‘Default Breakpoint List Config’ option.

The gathered information is dumped in its main window, allowing you to view it, but it can also be saved to a log file, for further work. This preferences needs to be enabled by checking the corresponding box in Socket Spy’s interface, otherwise it will not be performed.

When selecting a process for debugging, you can choose a new one or one that is currently running. It even allows you to ‘Start Suspended’.

Once the task is run, Socket Spy will execute it according to your preferences and display the terminal output in its main window, including every relevant detail about breakpoints, ‘Ret Addresses’ and ‘Params’. On the lower panel, you can view a log of the entire process.