how to encrypt a vc++ project?

i have been programing in vc++ for sometime and i want to make some free software for people to use but i really don't want people t开发者_StackOverflow社区o have a unprotected copy of my work. i just use what ever vc++ 2008 has when i build in right now so i don't know if it is encrypted or now. i don't need something that is top of the line i was just hopeing for something free and it would encrypt my project before i gave it out.

You need to start by thinking about what you want people to be able to do with your code, and what you want people not to be able to do. If all you want is that people can run your code, but can't change it (without significant difficulty) and can't see how you're doing what you're doing, then you can simply compile the program with your compiler, and send them the executable code. This is the way in which much commercial, paid-for software is distributed: as an example, if you buy a copy of Microsoft Word, you get an executable program which you can install on your machine and run, but you don't get the source code from which it was built. This means that you can't make changes to Word if you want to fix a problem or change the way in which it works.

If what you want it more complicated than this, please tell us what you want various people to be able to do and not do, and we'll try to help.

Well, "free software" can mean one of two things- free as in beer or free as in freedom. It sounds like you're looking for the first of the two.

I'd say don't bother with encrypting it. If you're distributing a compiled program, there's really no way to prevent someone from reverse engineering it if they wanted to... which is unlikely if your program is free anyway. Same goes if you're distributing the source. Encrypt it all you like, but all it takes is one person with a decrypted copy to redistribute it.

no one is going to use any 3rd party library if it can't be maintainable/debugable(because you don't want to provide source code)

its like installing unknown program on your computer... you never know that's gonna happen

if you really want to release it, then you might split it and release it in parts?

or maybe someone is already doing something like you.. check github for example

i don't really get what you want, maybe you just want to encrypt your project files?

if you want to encrypt it with free software why don't just compress and put password, for example you can use 7-zip, the encryption is AES-256 bit which is really good, no one can break it, except maybe NSA.