unarchiver for installation routine executable

  • Thread starter Thread starter Spacey Spade
  • Start date Start date
Spacey Spade said:
Someone already asked before, but got no response, so here is a repost:
Click to expand...

I don't think there is anything (atleast, nothing I've come accross). However, if the developer was sensible, he/she should have told the installer to;

1. Only install the dll's etc, if they did not exist
2. "" "" "" "" , if they were newer versions than those already installed

--

Regards

Steven Burn
Ur I.T. Mate Group
www.it-mate.co.uk

Keeping it FREE!
 
Spacey said:
Someone already asked before, but got no response, so here is a repost:

Does anyone know of any free program that will extract files­ from
installation or setup programs so that one can install them manually?
Se­veral of these programs (esp. older ones) install outdated dlls,
old versio­ns of winsock, etc. and sometimes it's not possible to tell
until after the inst­allation....
Click to expand...

Omega posted about this one a while ago:

Program: innounp
Author: QuickeneR
Ware: (Freeware) (open source: GNU GPL)
http://innounp.sourceforge.net/

innounp, the Inno Setup Unpacker
Version 0.14
Supports Inno Setup versions 3.0.0-beta through 5.0.7

Susan
Click to expand...
 
Thanks Susan.
Another solution I forgot until now. Run the setup program, and it
will unpack its contents into a temp folder. Copy the files to another
location before exiting the setup program, as this will delete the temp
files it created.

ps. congratulations on pricelesswarehome.org
 
Spacey said:
Another solution I forgot until now. Run the setup program, and it
will unpack its contents into a temp folder. Copy the files to another
location before exiting the setup program, as this will delete the temp
files it created.
Click to expand...

Um... this only works some of the time. Sometimes what you get
unpacked is a setup program along with "data1.cab". Can't open up the
cab file with typical arhiver software.
 
Spacey said:
Another solution I forgot until now. Run the setup program, and it
will unpack its contents into a temp folder. Copy the files to another
location before exiting the setup program, as this will delete the temp
files it created.
Click to expand...

Very clever Spacey. :)
ps. congratulations on pricelesswarehome.org
Click to expand...

Glad you like the site. It's very much a group effort -> Burnr
(graphics), REM (Text Editor Review), and many many others (suggestions,
corrections, updates, new information etc. etc. etc.)

Susan
 
Omega posted about this one a while ago:

Program: innounp
Click to expand...

Yes. And there are others, too. For Inno Setup versions 1.3.3 to 1.3.13
there was a GUI based Inno Extractor out there. The author withdraw it
a while ago. I can't say if one can still download it, somewhere.

The best tool for Wise Setup SFX is, IMHO, the e_wise program of
Veit Kannegieser:

http://www-user.tu-cottbus.de/~kannegv/programm/index_e.htm

Not as stable and up-to-date is exwise from Andrew de Quincey. (At
least it wasn't when I checked last.) It may be downloaded from SAC,
too:

ftp://ftp.sac.sk/pub/sac/pack/exwise05.zip

An interesting approach to Wise files you'll find with hwun of
Markus Jägermeister:

http://www.angelfire.com/ego/jmeister/hwun/

For Install Shield archives the tools of choice are icomp, i5comp, and
i6comp (depending on the version of the Setup files). They do not
strictly work with the 'installation routine executable' but with the
accompanied archives (*.z or *.cab in most cases). But I think they
still should be mentioned on this topic. There are many downloads. You
can look here to get all three of them:

http://sac-ftp.gratex.sk/pack20.html

For older types of Install Shield SFX there is Stix, again made by
Veit Kannegieser. (Download see above.)

Many packer (*.zip, *.arj, *.rar, and so on) based SFX archives can
be extracted with most(?) packer shells or file managers. I'm to
lazy to check this now, because you mostly get the files from just
executing them.

Other Setups are protected by executable compressors or protectors.
Then you may get hold of the data by removing the exe-compression
(or protection) and afterwards applying one of the afore mentioned
tools. Several executable decompressors / deprotectors are available.

For those who own <OT>Far or TC</OT>: There are some free plugins
for the extraction of Setup files. One of the most advanced is the
InstallExplorer (for <OT>TC</OT> with the IETotal extension. It is
not as stable as one would wish, unfortunately. Especially the
last version causes several crashes. That's why I stick with my
older one. But everybody may download and try for him/herself,
because this download contains both versions:

http://total.bukox.dmkproject.pl/download/3/6/

Also often worth trying are command switches. If you don't get
them from the website of the author(s) or from plain execution
(or from running with help switches: -? -h), you sometimes see
them when looking inside with a binary file viewer. Two coming
instantly to mind: The first are the Windows Update archives,
which have quiet a few switches. The one for simple extract is
(surprise, surprise):

-extract (you'll be prompted for output path)
or
-extract:Path (replace Path by a destination)

The other one is the McAfee Update, which supports an -E switch
for extraction.

I have the feeling that I missed to mention a few setup SFX
unpackers, I use on a regular basis. Most of this process I
made running unattended, one way or another. It is a bit time
consuming for the moment to look all possible locations up. So
I'll leave it for now. ;-)

BeAr
 
Thanks Ederson,

My purpose was to get drivers from Sony. They package the updates so
that they cannot be used by any other means except installing, and I am
doing http://unattended.msfn.org. I contacted Sony, and they did not
give alternatives. This is for a laptop... not mine.

Sony, I stick my tongue out at you in the tradition of Bill the Cat:
PtttttttTHHHHHHHHHHHHHH
Hope I didn't get anyone wet.
 
Give a link and maybe someone knows an unpacker... ;-)
Click to expand...

Hm. You don't seem too eager to get this solved... ;-) Okay. I just had
a look at the Sony site. It seems, *all* downloads are InstallShield SFX
files. So there is a general solution which should work:

You first extract the content of the SFX using the *file manager* found
inside the latest 7-Zip beta:

http://www.7-zip.org/download.html

After that you can fetch the content of the now visible *.cab archives
using the i6comp utility I mentioned within an earlier post of this
thread.

BeAr
 
Sorry... I'm resistant to have to add yet one more thing to my to do
list. However, since I've taken a large part of Windows Management
Instrumentation out of XP, on trying to install the display driver I
get the errors: "failed to create iwbemlocator object" and "unable to
identify your computer model". Ofcourse, everything I state is a
guess. I'm in it all the way. God help me, christ help me. Right now
I can just use another driver from ATI for the Radeon 7500 Series, but
the graphics is a Mobility Radeon 7500c. Seems to work well enough if
I change the resolution once BEFORE restarting (otherwise my screen
looks like a thunderstorm). So anyway, I am off to download 7-Zip as I
will probably need it in the future. Thank you again
 
Sorry... I'm resistant to have to add yet one more thing to my to do
list. However, since I've taken a large part of Windows Management
Instrumentation out of XP, on trying to install the display driver I
get the errors: "failed to create iwbemlocator object" and "unable to
identify your computer model".
Click to expand...

I'm not too sure that your problem was related to WMI at all. (At least
in the first place. Maybe you have messed up enough by now to have a
WMI problem, also. ;-) )

The (newer) ATI display drivers are well known to cause setup problems.
In most cases you can't just install a new one on top of an old one.
You have to switch to standard VGA driver (and reboot), instead. After
that you can run the setup of your new driver.

Moreover: The new driver setup are said to *not work* without a
network connection! :-( It totally escapes me, why on earth a display
driver setup requires a running network?!

I can point you to a (possible) solution, though. There is a community
developing alternative drivers for ATI cards:

http://omegadrivers.net

I didn't test them. So I can't say anything about their quality, and so
on. But these drivers are recommended on several places on the net. So
they won't be that awful. Will they? ;-)

BeAr
 
No... I really have taken out WMI... http://jdeboeck.msfnhosting.org,
and it didn't work on the first install, so I tried the Radeon 7500
Series next.

Requires Network Connection? Hey! WTF! I should try that. Nope,
didn't work.

Re: omegadrivers.net ... ATI's drivers suck so much that someone would
make alternate ones? Or do they just have extra time on their hands...
hmmm... shouldn't be talking.
 
No... I really have taken out WMI... http://jdeboeck.msfnhosting.org,
and it didn't work on the first install, so I tried the Radeon 7500
Series next.
Click to expand...

That's the problem. The ATI drivers from Sony tests the installed
hardware on compatibility by using a simple *.vbs script which calls
WMI right on the beginning of Setup. No WMI -> no setup. :-(

I guess the ATI driver you got now is this one:

http://mirror.ati.com/support/drivers/winxp/radeonwdm-xp.html

It is even newer than the driver you get from Sony (6.14.10.6512 vs.
6.13.10.6160 for the Radeon miniport driver) and should do well with
your card. - If I'm not completely mistaken you'll find that the main
difference between the Radeon 7500 for desktop computers and the
Mobility Radeon 7500C is the lower RAMDAC clock speed of the latter.
(To reduce power consumption.)

BeAr
 
I guess the ATI driver you got now is this one:
http://mirror.ati.com/support/drivers/winxp/radeonwdm-xp.html
Click to expand...

Correct Sir. Very good mondongo.
It is even newer than the driver you get from Sony (6.14.10.6512 vs.
6.13.10.6160 for the Radeon miniport driver) and should do well with
your card. - If I'm not completely mistaken you'll find that the main
difference between the Radeon 7500 for desktop computers and the
Mobility Radeon 7500C is the lower RAMDAC clock speed of the latter.
(To reduce power consumption.)
Click to expand...

I just worry about all the threats from Sony and ATI that the laptop
graphics chip is so darned different. However, methinks... they will
probably try to do as little work as possible, to save money.
 
I just worry about all the threats from Sony and ATI that the laptop
graphics chip is so darned different. However, methinks... they will
probably try to do as little work as possible, to save money.
Click to expand...

The driver provided by ATI covers nearly the whole range of video
adapters released throughout the last years. I had just an additional
glance on the web: There are additional versions of Radeon 7500
(mobile or not) out there. But the driver supports them all.

Yours should be a Mobility Radeon 7500 M7-CSP32. (Replace the last 2
digits by the amount of memory your card has got - if different from
32 MByte.) The important part is M7. It's the name of the chip family
used for your card. As long as the driver supports this chipset it
would do fine. (Provided that the driver is not too buggy ;-) )

If the driver would not support your card it just wouldn't install.
It retrieves the PCI Plug&Play info of your installed hardware and
checks the strings against a list.

You can query this PCI info string yourself. Get the program
UnknownDevices from here:

http://www.halfdone.com/Development/UnknownDevices

It will show a list of your installed hardware. Under the entry of
your video card you'll see a subtree Full_Details->PNP_ID. The ID
of your card will be:

VEN_1002&DEV_4C57&SUBSYS_813C104D

or something very close to this. The Number 0x1002 belongs to ATI.
The next part of the number 0x4C57 identifies the Radeon 7500C.
There are different numbers for different versions of this card known.
The following part of the string identifies different steppings,
peripheral equipment, and so on.

BeAr
 
D:\xpcd\$OEM$\$1\Drivers\k_h\display>i6comp x data2.cab
----------------------------------------------------------
_InstallShield 5.x Cabinet Compression & Maintenance Util_
_Version 2.00 -] fOSSiL - 2000 [- _
_InstallShield 6.x Cabinet Compression & Maintenance Util_
_Version 1.03b -] Morlac - 2000 [- _
_General exception bugfix by -] DarkSoul - 2002 [- _
----------------------------------------------------------

Could not open data2.hdr

D:\xpcd\$OEM$\$1\Drivers\k_h\display>


BeAr,

Actually, I got away with using my old trick again. Start the setup,
copy the created temp files all extracted and ready to be exploited.
Why on earth don't I remember this more often...
 
D:\xpcd\$OEM$\$1\Drivers\k_h\display>i6comp x data2.cab [...]
Could not open data2.hdr
Click to expand...

InstallShield v6 archives always(?) consist of at least 2 *.cab files.
And there is - again *always*(?) - only one *.hdr file. Archives with
more than one header indicate IS v5 archives.

You extract IS v6 archives always by pointing i6comp to the data file
you have the header to. This should be data1.cab in most (if not all)
cases. The content of all following *.cab files will be extracted
automatically, too.

BeAr
 
It worked!!! Thank You!!! I don't know that I've ever done enough good
to fellow men to deserve your help, but I will try to pass it forward.
 
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