Anti-Decompiler for C# Windows Application

Question

3.00/5 (1 vote)

See more:

Hello,

I have developed one Windows Application in C# 4.0
I want to install it on client machine. But I am worried about "Reverse Engineering"/Decompiler.

How I can protect my exe files?
Which is the best Anti-Decompiler (Preferably Free) ?
How to archive exe file(s) so no one can extract it from 7Zip or prevent de-compiling of the same?

Your help is very appropriated!!!

Posted 21-Jun-12 5:22am

Pravinkarne.31

Add a Solution

2 solutions

Solution 2

There's no way to prevent decompilation, but you can make it very difficult to understand the decompiled code with obsfucation, as Tim mentioned.

As for the 7Zip part, you can encrypt the file (by entering a password under the encryption section in the "Add to Archive" window of 7Zip), but you'd have to give the client the password or else they couldn't use the program (or extract it yourself, but either way in the end they have access to the exe, otherwise they can't run it).

But honestly, I wouldn't be so concerned, as long as you obsfucate the code it would probably be easier for someone to start from scratch than it would be to reverse engineer your code.

Posted 21-Jun-12 5:53am

lewax00

Add a Solution

Add your solution here

Treat my content as plain text, not as HTML

Preview 0

…

Existing Members

Sign in to your account

...or Join us

Download, Vote, Comment, Publish.

Your Email
Password
Forgot your password?

Your Email
This email is in use. Do you need your password?
Optional Password

I have read and agree to the Terms of Service and Privacy Policy
Please subscribe me to the CodeProject newsletters

When answering a question please:

Read the question carefully.
Understand that English isn't everyone's first language so be lenient of bad spelling and grammar.
If a question is poorly phrased then either ask for clarification, ignore it, or edit the question and fix the problem. Insults are not welcome.
Don't tell someone to read the manual. Chances are they have and don't get it. Provide an answer or move on to the next question.

Let's work to help developers, not make them feel stupid.

This content, along with any associated source code and files, is licensed under The Code Project Open License (CPOL)

Tim Corey · Accepted Answer · 2012-06-21T05:24:00

Solution 1

What you are looking for is code obfuscation. There are a number of free (and paid) options for you out there. Here is a Stack Overflow question with a number of options:

http://stackoverflow.com/questions/805549/free-obfuscation-tools-for-net[^]

Posted 21-Jun-12 5:24am

Tim Corey

Comments

Vitaly Tomilov 22-Jun-12 11:30am

In addition to this, I'd suggest that after you have applied obfuscation, see how this affects tools like this one: http://blogs.jetbrains.com/dotnet/2012/05/dotpeek-10-is-released/