VBReFormer, the VB decompiler that recovers your VB5 and VB6 source code

VBReFormer analyses every executable compiled with Visual Basic 5 or 6, in P-Code as well as Native Code. The interface — forms, controls, resources — is extracted in full in every case. Code reconstruction depends on what the binary kept: the free edition shows you that on your own file, before any purchase.

VB6 compiles either to P-Code (pseudo-code run by the virtual machine) or to Native Code (x86 machine instructions, the default setting). As of generation 2 (VBReFormer 7), the same engine decompiles both into readable Visual Basic: 1,158 of the 1,164 defined P-Code instructions are translated, a measurement published on the coverage page. The previous generation reconstructed Native Code only.

Yes, when you own the rights to the software — the typical case being reconstructing your own lost source code — or within the legal framework of interoperability. You must hold the necessary rights to the analyzed program.

Yes, and without buying anything. The free desktop edition is the same installer as the licensed one: it extracts the full interface (forms, resources, project structure) and shows a preview of the decompiled code, with no time limit. The online studio, served in eleven languages, does the same in the browser with nothing to install: disassembly, P-code, designer, .vbp project and resources are served in full, the reconstructed source code as a preview. The licence unlocks the complete code and the project export.

For the term you choose at purchase: one, two or three years. Email support and every update released during that period are included, at no extra cost. When it expires, access ends and you can take out a new licence. The free edition remains usable with no time limit.

That is exactly what the free edition is for: it shows you, on YOUR file and before any purchase, what can be extracted — forms, resources, project structure. We always recommend trying it first. As licenses are digital content delivered immediately, sales are final; if you hit a technical issue, our support will work with you on a solution.

Often: on a bench of 149 projects, 121 recompile untouched. The export writes the headers the IDE requires (VERSION, Attribute VB_Name), without which VB6 rejects the file. What could not be reconstructed is named and explained in the export notes rather than filled with a plausible value.

Whatever Visual Basic needs at run time is in the file and comes back: names of forms, classes, modules and controls, event handlers, public class members, interface properties, runtime calls, API declarations. What the compiler threw away cannot be recovered, by any tool: comments, names of local variables and parameters, named constants replaced by their value, and the names of procedures in .bas modules.

No, and it is not planned. VBReFormer handles Visual Basic 5 and 6: .exe, .dll, .ocx and .scr. For .NET, free and open-source decompilers do that job better than a paid tool would.

It interprets. Generation 1 matched patterns in the compiled code and rendered only what it recognised. Generation 2 interprets machine code and P-code alike to reconstruct expressions and types; what it cannot reconstruct is neither dropped nor guessed, it is named and explained in the export notes.