Is it possible to modify popular computer programs?

You won't have access to the source code, which is the easiest way to modify something. If you want to look at code to see how it works, find a couple of open source programs and see how their code works. Being open source, they will give you the code so you can modify it as you see fit.

You can but it is normally against the End User Agreement you have to agree to when you use the program.

No.

I'm sure it could but what would be your reason? It functions as it should now! I doubt that someone who doesnt even know how to look at its code is gonna do anything but screw it up in the first place!

No you can't, once the application is published (.exe) you can't modify the application, that's just how Windows works.

Not without a great deal of programming knowledge. The code is actually in machine-readable code. You would first have to disassemble it using special software to create an assembly language version. You would then have to translate the assembly language version into a programming language like C, make the modifications, reassemble it, and then recompile it. In practical terms, it's pretty much impossible.

well its not really accessable languages unless you study it lol but i would delve into hex editors also a very good proggy to use i use it myself to change the loadup images of programs (splash logos) and also there menu boxes is called resource hacker "reshacker.exe" do a google search for it i'm sure you can find it ;-) Victor C.

It depends on the application and what you're trying to do. Obviously you're not going to have access to the source code from which the applications were built, but you may be able to use built-in scripting abilities to build in new functionality. For example, Word includes VBA (Visual Basic for Applications) with which you can write macros to do many different things. If you want to embed functionality of these applications in your own, again this depends on the application. I'm not sure if Photoshop exposes anything, but Word exposes a very rich and detailed COM interface for interacting with the application (and COM is accessible by .NET code, so you can use it from C# apps). For example, you can use Word's COM interface to integrate its spell checker into your own application.

Microsoft Word is easily modifiable by learning VBA (Visual Basic for Applications) which is a programming language based on Visual Basic and is available to all the MS Office apps. You can use VBA to create custom functions in Excel, auto-fill documents and templates with data from databases, control program flow when using forms in Access. It is very powerful and can greatly enhance productivity, it is also one of the most popular methods of creating viral code embedded and transmitted within office documents.