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Unzip a Windows self-extracting .exe zip file
Authored by: peragrin on Dec 28, '04 01:11:05PM

Remember not all .exe's are zip files.

Some windows downloads are basically a small unzip utility, and a zip archive. But some other installers don't unzip and are compressed in other fashions.

Otherwise this is a great thing to keep in the back of your mind.

So Remember if it fails it may not be stuffit's fault, but it might really be a program excutable.

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I thought once I was found but it was only a dream



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Unzip a Windows self-extracting .exe zip file
Authored by: Darklon on Dec 28, '04 06:27:57PM

I also never thought of this. I tried the drag and drop method and it just didn't do anything, and deluxe just said "what the heck am I supposed to do with this???" I tried it on some files that caused deluxe to hiccup previously and they extracted no problem. BIG thanks.

The .exe's you are referring to are self extracting zip archives. Just a .zip with a code stub of winzip (or another util) attached so it can extract the files from the .zip archive. It's basically the equivalent of using stuffit to create a self extracting archive in case someone doesn't have stuffit installed on their mac.

Though I doubt there's any mac user anywhere who doesn't have at least one copy of stuffit expander installed on some drive somewhere. :-)

The other.exes are probably just plain old applications, and all sorts of weirdness can happen with those. They really should use some other extension for self extracting .zip archives to help us cut down on the confusion. ;-)



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