# taviso/loadlibrary

Porting Windows Dynamic Link Libraries to Linux

Repository: https://github.com/taviso/loadlibrary
Canonical: https://ross.abutalabs.com/products/loadlibrary
Language: C
License: GPL-2.0
License Family: copyleft
Topics: linux, porting, windows
Last push: 2025-04-10T12:30:38+00:00

## Health v2 (maintenance only)
Score: 39/100 (v2, computed 2026-09-03T02:20:16.233290+00:00)
- activity 15, release rhythm 35, longevity 100
- inputs: {"age_days": 3389, "days_push": 510, "days_rel": null, "gap_med": null, "n_releases_24m": 0}
- flags: no_releases
- formula: round(0.45*activity + 0.35*rhythm + 0.20*longevity); archived -> min(score, 10)

## Adoption (not part of the score)
Stars 4501, forks 392 (observed 2026-08-28T04:08:51.513153+00:00)

## What it is
A library that lets native Linux programs load and call functions from Windows DLLs via a custom PE/COFF loader with a dlopen-like API. It includes a demonstration port of the Windows Defender malware scanning engine (mpengine) to Linux.

## Use cases
- run windows dll on linux
- fuzz windows antivirus engine on linux
- scan files with windows defender engine on linux
- load and call windows library functions from linux program
- debug windows dll code with gdb on linux
- hook and patch windows dll at runtime
- scale up fuzzing of self-contained windows libraries in containers

## When to choose
- You need to fuzz or analyze self-contained Windows libraries (codecs, decompressors, virus scanners, image decoders) on Linux without a Windows VM
- You want to run the Windows Defender mpengine scanner natively on Linux for malware research or scanning
- You need gdb debugging, ASAN/Valgrind support, or runtime hooking while testing Windows binary code on Linux

## When to avoid
- You need to run full Windows applications with GUIs or complex OS dependencies rather than self-contained DLLs
- You want a general-purpose Windows compatibility layer like Wine for running end-user software
- Your target DLL requires many unimplemented Windows API imports and you cannot write the stubs yourself

## Facets
- artifact type: library
- maturity: active
- function: reverse-engineering, fuzzing, security, parser
- domain: security, reverse-engineering, developer-tools, windows
- platform: cpp
- tags: pe-loader, dll-compatibility, windows-dll, binary-compatibility, malware-analysis, antivirus, gdb-debugging, hooking, linux

## Member repositories
- taviso/loadlibrary (main) score 39

## Provenance
- Observed fields: from GitHub, fetched 2026-08-28T04:08:51.513153+00:00.
- Health v2: computed from the inputs above; adoption is never an input.
- Inferred fields (summary, facets, guidance): AI-extracted, prompt v1, taxonomy v1, on 2026-08-29T18:20:25.085628+00:00, confidence not recorded.
  - readme: https://github.com/taviso/loadlibrary (fetched 2026-08-28T04:08:51.513153+00:00, sha c7eaf4547933)
- Data as of 2026-08-30T08:39:29.467469+00:00.