OT: Creating Self-Extracting ZIP files under FC2

[John Thompson]

Mike McMullen wrote:

> I would like to create a zip archive that would be self-extracting
> under Windows from an FC2 system.
> 
> Is this possible? And if so how? I've looked at the man page
> for zip and see the -A option. I've played around with a test
> zip file and can't figure out how to get this to go.
> 
> Any help appreicated!

Sorry about coming into this late, and I'm not sure if this has already 
been answered (the "search" function in the list archive appears to be 
broken).  Yes, it is possible to create self-extracting zip archives 
that can unzip in DOS/Windows, but you have to jump through a couple hoops.

First, download the Windows version of Info-Zip's "unzip" program 
(http://www.mirror.ac.uk/sites/ftp.info-zip.org/pub/infozip/WIN32/unz551xN.exe) 
and unpack it using "unzip unz551xN.exe" (it's a self-extracting zip 
archive, but will only self-extract in Windows).  Included in the 
package is a self-extractor stub called "SFXWiz32.exe"  This is what you 
need to make it work.

Create your .zip file, then prepend "SFXWiz32.exe" onto the .zip file:

$ cat SFXWiz32.exe zipfile.zip >> zipfile.exe

"zipfile.exe" can be self-extracted by running it from a command line 
(in DOS or CMD.EXE shell) or by double-clicking in Windows Explorer.

I just tested this in Win2k here and it worked fine.

If you prefer a console-mode self-extractor instead of the GUI 
self-extractor, use "unzipsfx.exe" instead of "SFXWiz32.exe" in the step 
above.


-- 

-John (john at os2.dhs.org)