Self-Extractor

The Self-Extractor is part of each ZIP self-extracting archive. It starts when the self-extracting archive is opened. It unpacks the archive to the target directory chosen by the user (or optionally to a designated directory without prompting).

Features:

• ZIP format compatibility, including older ZIP formats.
• Extraction of encrypted files.
• Support for spanned self-extracting archives.
• Available in several language versions.
• Custom title and text in the main self-extractor dialog.
• Option to display a message box with user-defined text when the self-extractor starts.
• Custom icon in the self-extractor dialog and executable file.
• Custom text for the "extract" button.
• The Self-Extractor can start a program (e.g., your installer), open a document, or open an HTTP link when extraction is finished.
• Ability to run standard .inf files as an alternative to setup programs.
• Remove files extracted to a temporary folder when the started program finishes.
• Remove files from a temporary folder even if the installation program involves a reboot.
• Ability to wait for a specified program to finish before temporary files are removed.
• Option to specify the target directory as the current directory, the temporary directory, the Program Files directory, the Windows directory, the System directory, or a directory specified by an environment variable or Registry value.
• Option to specify a subdirectory to create in the target directory when extracting the self-extracting archive.
• Options to start extraction automatically, to hide the main Self-Extractor dialog, to suppress the summary message box, and to automatically overwrite files in the target directory.
• Easy and user-friendly environment for creating self-extracting archives in Sally using the ZIP plugin.
• Ability to create self-extracting archives from the command line (using the command-line tool Zip2Sfx, which you can find in the plugins\zip\zip2sfx subdirectory of Sally's installation directory).

The Self-Extractor executable is packaged in a compact SFX package (file) with language-dependent data (such as texts in the main dialog). For each supported language, there is one standalone SFX package. SFX packages are distributed with the ZIP plugin.