From built *.exe, any way to get back source?

[Gan Uesli Starling]

I have a built *.exe which I wrote myself two years ago but for which I have since lost the source VI. Said original VI was small so that I could write it anew, but am hoping for a lazier way. I'd like (if that's possible) to just un-build that foo.exe so as to get the original foo.vi if that is possible. I was thinking to put it in the public domain once I do.

 

How I losts the VI is that between then and now I'd got a PC upgrade at work and must have neglected to copy that over (it not being an official work project).

 

What the little program does is only some math. I have attached it as a ZIP. It's a conveninece util for doing trig on bit map pictures. Say you know the size of one item in the picture, You enter that. You also enter the X,Y pairs, end-to-end for that item. Then to know the size of any other item in the same pic (only approximate because of ignoring the camera's parallax) you enter another set of X,Y pairs and violla, it does the trig. Very handy for guestimating proportions so as to create 3D models from photographs of real-world objects. I didn't have LabVIEW on my home PC so I built this up at work, but in a directory not where I keep my work-related LabVIEW projects. And hence I forgot to copy it over when I got the new PC.

Virtual Calipers.zip

[hooovahh]

So generally you can get VIs out of an EXE but usually you don't want to.  VIs in an EXE by default have no block diagrams, or front panels unless they are used in the application.  So if you were able to get the VIs out you will be able to call them and get outputs from it, but can't see the source.  Another big issue is that the VI will be compiled for the only version of LabVIEW that the EXE was built for.  So if you made the EXE in 8.2 you can only call it from the 8.2 runtime engine.  I have some tools I've found on NI's forums to help get VIs out of EXEs but ever time I try to I realize the outcome isn't very helpful.

[Gan Uesli Starling]

I half expected as much. I'll just re-write it. Thanks for saving me the futility of trying in vain.