I have done something daft and wonder if anyone here can tell me of a way to fix the problem…
I wrote a simple(ish) application in visual basic 6 some time ago (years) and distributed it to some customers as a packaged deployment, including, obviously, the .exe file. Somehow I have managed to delete all copies of the original code :rolleyes:
<<Insert your strongly-worded condemnation of my lack of effective backup strategy here please>>
Am I totally shafted, or can I somehow get my code back? I need to edit the original program unfortunately and REALLY don’t want to re-write the whole thing. Actually, I do have an even older copy of the code, but it goes back a few revisions and there would still be a LOT of re-writing to be done.
I very much doubt if there is anything I can do, but hey… one has to ask the cleverest group of people out there for help - how else would you be able to shine!
What you need to do is decompile the application. I’m not sure how easy/possible that is with VB6 apps, but a quick google search turned up this site. It might be a good place to start.
Decompiling doesn’t restore the actual code though. Compiling destroys much of the information that a developer needs to see like comments, formatting, and variable names. Decompiling tries to build back source code in reverse but it can only very roughly approximate how the original source code looked and it is generally very difficult to read let alone work on. If all that is avaiable is the compiled version of the program, you are probably out of luck.
The source code from the (nth) previous version, viewed side-by-side with that decompile, will probably help you decipher it. But yes, you’re doomed to some re-writing of that application.
