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*****CAN THIS BE DONE??!?!*****

by Wealth Mentor
7 replies
I have a small application [non-commercial]. It is an .exe file that seems to install OK, but hangs when you try to run it, and never loads. Can this be fixed??

I have a screen capture video that shows how it works [or should I say, is SUPPOSED to work].

I need to know if it's possible to go in and figure why it hangs and doesn't load.

Someone, please talk me down....
  • Profile picture of the author SylviaHeins
    a few months a go I was musing to an old school coder buddy that I'd learned from some im training that I could convert large pdf's (with video say) to an executable file (just change the file extension from pdf to exe and save it-upload it, link it etc); he frowned and said something disapproving like that it opened too many portals for malicious dangers, as I understood it. He almost dropped it but then said there'd been some hoopla over at Adobe a while ago, it was a bug they were tryiing to fix (I'm not sure what he meant by that but is connected). That may or may be relevant

    I almost sent you a link, but my credibility is unproven (the 15 post policy) and II'm not yet endowed with the link inclusion capabilities. just search 'video .exe files' and a few down you'll see
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  • Profile picture of the author n7 Studios
    We'd need to see the screenshot, video link and also have the details on what the application is.
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  • Profile picture of the author mywebwork
    Don't get your hopes up if you only have the exe. The exe is compiled from the original source code which was probably created in Visual BASIC or C# or some other language. Unless you also have a copy of the source code it's unlikely that you'll be able to repair the exe.

    Sorry about that!
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    • Profile picture of the author Wealth Mentor
      Originally Posted by mywebwork View Post

      Don't get your hopes up if you only have the exe. The exe is compiled from the original source code which was probably created in Visual BASIC or C# or some other language. Unless you also have a copy of the source code it's unlikely that you'll be able to repair the exe.

      Sorry about that!
      Thanks for the info. I don't know a thing about programming, so I asked the question here, and I also posted a job on Guru.com.

      I've received several bids from folk who claim to be able to fix it or reverse engineer it, to give me a working program. Am I to assume that, based on your insights, these folk may be taking advantage of my ignorance??? Or is there another explanation, and it is possible to make this thing work properly?
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      • Profile picture of the author Troy Davids
        Originally Posted by Wealth Mentor View Post

        I've received several bids from folk who claim to be able to fix it or reverse engineer it, to give me a working program. Am I to assume that, based on your insights, these folk may be taking advantage of my ignorance??? Or is there another explanation, and it is possible to make this thing work properly?
        No. Reverse engineering and decompiling software are two different things. Reverse engineering can be done on any executable file with the proper tools and will produce the assembly code for that executable. Decompiling requires tools also, but software in most modern languages cannot be decompiled.
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        • Profile picture of the author Wealth Mentor
          Originally Posted by Troy Davids View Post

          No. Reverse engineering and decompiling software are two different things. Reverse engineering can be done on any executable file with the proper tools and will produce the assembly code for that executable. Decompiling requires tools also, but software in most modern languages cannot be decompiled.
          Okay Troy, so it sound like I need to get more specific details from bidders before I award this job. 8 or 9 folk said they likely could fix it...even when I told them up front that I did not have the source code and the app owner specifically said we are on our own if it does not work for us...don't expect them to spend time figuring out why.

          I only had 1 person who discussed reverse engineering the thing based. What questions would you, and should I be asking??

          Thanks much
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          • Profile picture of the author Troy Davids
            Originally Posted by Wealth Mentor View Post

            Okay Troy, so it sound like I need to get more specific details from bidders before I award this job. 8 or 9 folk said they likely could fix it...even when I told them up front that I did not have the source code and the app owner specifically said we are on our own if it does not work for us...don't expect them to spend time figuring out why.

            I only had 1 person who discussed reverse engineering the thing based. What questions would you, and should I be asking??
            Yes, you definitely need to ask questions.

            A few questions I'd ask:

            1. What disassembler are they going to use? (The best one is probably IDA Pro, but there's other good ones.)

            2. Have they reverse engineered Windows software before? Are they familiar with the .NET Framework, which I'm assuming this software was written in?

            3. How long will it take?

            4. Is there bid for X hours, or is it to complete the project? (i.e. if they bid $200, is that for 20 hours of work, or is that to complete the project no matter how long it takes, even if it takes 1000 hours)

            If you'd like, you can post here or send me a PM with their answers and I'll let you know if they're a good candidate for the job.
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