There are several functionally equivalent but incompatible archive file formats, including ZIP, RAR, 7z and many others. It will not self-extract under Linux, but can be opened with a suitable Linux archive manager. It could alternatively be converted into somefiles.exe which will self-extract on a machine running Microsoft Windows without the need for that suitable archive manager. exe extension like other executable files.įor example, an archive may be called somefiles.zip - it can be opened under any operating system by a suitable archive manager which supports both the file format and compression algorithm used. In some cases this requires the self-extracting executable to be renamed to hold a file extension associated with the corresponding packer. Self-extracting archives cannot self-extract under a different operating system but most often can still be opened with a suitable extractor as this tool will disregard the executable part of the file and instead extract only the archive resource. Non-self-extracting archives contain the archived files only and therefore need to be extracted with a compatible program. to specify the target location or select only specific files to be extracted. Often, the embedded self-extractor supports a number of command line arguments to control the behaviour, i.e. On executing a self-extracting archive under an operating system which supports it, the archive contents are extracted and stored as files on the disk. Users who are unwilling to run the self-extracting file they received (for example, when it may contain a virus) can use the file archiver to view or decompress its content without running executable code. However, file archivers like WinRAR can still treat self-extracting files as any other compressed files. Such a compressed file does not require an external program to decompress the contents of the self-extracting file, and it can run the operation itself. It incorporates an executable file module, a module used to run uncompressed files from compressed files.

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