I am new to reverse engineering so this seems like a very basic issue, and still I was not able to find an answer to it myself yet. Hopefully someone can point me in the right direction. I am on Windows, I disassembled an exe file using PE Explorer. For now, my process was to somehow, mostly by trial and error, identify the machine code steps I want to change in the dissasembly, then make the necessary change by opening the same exe in a hex editor, finding the same instruction and changing it there.(Side note here: This two step process is quite inefficient. Is there a program you can recommend where I can combine both steps in one go, or at least side by side?) While this has worked for me so far, I believe there must be a better way than doing this by trial and error and manually trying to identify the functions in the machine code. Is there? Particularly, is there a way to run a program (exe) and in parallel follow the steps in the dissasembly (ideally slowed down..)? Thank you.
Follow steps in dissassembly after application start
disassembly;windows;debugging
Particularly, is there a way to run a program (exe) and in parallel  follow the steps in the dissasembly (ideally slowed down..)?Yes, the type of tool you're describing is called a debugger.Some popular debuggers for Windows are:OllyDbgIDA Pro's debuggerx64dbgThere are plenty of others, but these are some of the most user-friendly.