David,

   Don't know of any of those program off hand.  I'm sure someone has
developed an add-in which encrypts the executable so that it is
gibberish to a disassembler which I think is what the FoxPro option
does.  Still, this will not prevent the more than casual hacker
from getting at your program code, this will simply slow him/her down
some.

   Any program you write at the base level will have to be interpeted 
by the operating system that you created the program for.  This
means that any executable that you create must have the instructions
to interpet your exectuable so that it can run it.  If you encrypt 
or mask the majority of your program, a beginning of your executable
contains unencryption program instructions which contains the 
method and the key for decrypting the rest of the code.  There 
are hackers tools out there that will interpet this encryption code 
and disassemble the rest of it.

   All it does is slow down the execution time for
your end user, and perhaps prevent the casual hacker from
look at the strings embedded in your exectuable from
notepad.

   The bottom line is that there is no true way of making code
completely safe from decompiling.  You can only simply make it
more difficult for it to be done.

Cardyin

--------------------------------------
Cardyin Kim
C/S & Web Development Analyst
Information Services
San Antonio Community Hospital
ckim@s...     (xxx)xxx-xxxx     
--------------------------------------


-----Original Message-----
From: David Hay [mailto:dhay1999@y...]
Sent: Monday, August 13, 2001 8:14 AM
To: professional vb
Subject: [pro_vb] preventing decompiles


Is there any way to prevent a decompile in VB6?

I have heard that there was an option to do this in Visual FoxPro, but I 
can't seem to find anything in straight VB6...

thanks!

David