Any Computer genius out there? I need some help!!?

Question

I want to know how to open an application file i.e files with a .exe (executable) extension. I want to view the source code of the application. I tried opening music files in wordpad, that is how i want to open an application file too. Any softwares that i could open it with? Please help Thanks

Answer 1

Those executable files (.exe) are compiled into binary codes. When you open it in a text editor, all that you will see are some scribbles; there is no way for you see the source codes this way. However, you can download some decompilers to decompile the executable files to see the source codes. There is one thing about these source codes that are generated by the decompilers though. These source codes are logically equivalent to the original source codes; you may see a lot of redundant codes in the generated source codes.

Answer 2

you can open an exe in notepad but it won't do you much good because the program gets compiled into machine code when and exe is created. What you want to do is reverse engineer an exe and turn it back into the computer instructions (programs) that were written. You really do need to be a programming expert to make sense of this and the reverse engineering software is not widely available for free download off the web

Answer 3

.exe files are binary files....there is no way you can see the source code. But i would suggest you could open the .exe file with a Hex editor and make some sense of the contents.
Also there are C and Java language decompilers available,if you are sure of the language in which the program then you could use them...