Sometimes you encounter a file on the Net which is compressed as a self-extracting zip-file for Windows only. Its file extension is ".exe". But you HAVE to have its contents, and you just can't open that .exe file! For instance, a PDF manual from Canon's site -- they tell you to open it with Acrobat, but they made it an exe, saving just 0.2 MB.
Well, there is a "dirty" way to open it. Just rename the file extension to ".zip" (and confirm the dialog), and open it with Stuffit Expander. It doesn't work with Panther's built-in zip-extractor (BOMArchiveHelper) -- so don't double-click the file, but choose "Open with > Stuffit Expander" from the contextual menu (control-click on the file). I tested this with Stuffit Expander 7.0.3, but my guess is that you can use almost any version...
You can also use the command-line utility unzip in Terminal -- in that case, you don't even have to rename the file. A simple unzip thisfile.exe is enough to get things going. I believe this command comes with Panther, but I'm not sure. Either way, you can obtain it from the Fink package called "zip."
Mac OS X Hints
http://hints.macworld.com/article.php?story=20041227030618317