Thank you for confirming my crc probs nitro322.

I used your installer version UniExtractor on itself to get the required SA files and minimal reg entries for context menus (I only wanted the basic reg entries for context extract files exe , msi , chm , hlp).
Incorperated UniExtract into SA Utils install package , Updated SA Utils thread to current version.

Trivial sugestion for your right click Context Menu maybe offer to have the 3 menu options under 1 main in a submenu.
eg:


As I said I was going to flog your prog last night and I did.
I was impressed with it's performance and it worked on more files then I expected.
Luv the .ISS it creates , takes the guess work out of finding reg entries .
Great Work m8.

Very much appreciated THANK YOU.

I've been testing this app since 0.8. Keep up the good work. Good job with this!!! I'm glad you used my favorite installer too hehe!!!

This post has been edited by 1chaoticadult: Jan 18 2006, 12:34 AM

wow this app is awesome!

i also go the crc errors but i did the install/copy files/uninstall trick

I created and uploaded a new copy of the self-extracting archive. I'm not getting any errors from this one, but I'd appreciate it if someone could confirm.

smashly, the installer does exactly what you describe by default. The "Enable Explorer context menu integration" only adds associations for native Windows extensions; specifically, this includes .exe, .??_, .chm, .hlp, and .msi. The "Associate Universal Extractor..." is what handles integration with other supported archive types. I don't particularly have a problem with you modifying the code, but it seems a bit unnecessary.

Btw, the source code for the installer is included in the source archive. You can download that from it's home page. No need to unpack the installer if that's all you want. :-)

Confirmed , uniextract10_noinst.exe extracts without crc errors now ...all good

I did't wan't to modify your code nitro322, just curb it so to speak.

What I meant by the Context Menu is that when I right click an exe , msi , chm ,hlp that I would now have 3 new entries in my root context menu, add that to the other 13 other options I already have in the root of my context menu for those file assosiations from other progs and it's now starting to get very long.
I found 1 option to "UniExtract Files.." on the root of my Context Menu was sufficient for me.
I would like all 3 options but just not on the root of my Context Menu. But hey that's just my preference
If I knew how to bring all 3 options into a submenu off the root of my context menu then I would leave all 3 options. No biggy anyways.

Your prog rocks for me as is.

Keep up the great work

Cheers.

This post has been edited by smashly: Jan 19 2006, 05:48 AM

Ok, gotcha. I'd actually like to do something like this myself, but I don't think it's possible without writing a shell extension (.dll). Ultimately I'd like to get to this point, so that, in addition to grouping all options into one menu, I could also add the context menu entries to all supported filetypes without worrying about taking over their associations. Eg, when I double-click on a .rar file, it sill opens with WinRAR, but I have my UniExtract entries available should I need them.

Any care to work on something like this? It'a bit over my head, and I don't have a copy of Visual Studio (which I think is required for writing shell extensions), so it'll be quite a while before I'm able to do something like this myself.

Yep your right nitro322 about you'd need to write a shellx dll to do what I was wanting.
FTM for my private use I hacked/hijacked a shelx dll from QuickMenu and customized it for SA Utils.

I have it so anywhere in windows I can right click and choose an option to open any of SA Utils progs.
I added shortcuts for all 3 UniExtract options as well , but the problem is those options are available on any file type which will give error if a user selects the wrong file type to UniExtract.

So now I have SA Utils on the root of my context menu , then in a sub menu off that I have all options of the programs in sa utils kit. It's rough but does what I need ftm. I won't release the hacked dll for the shellx because it's not mine to do so (Also if a user used QuickMenu as well as SA Utils there'd be probs , to resolve I'd have to change it's CLSID of the hacked dll). QuickMenu is a free shellx , but I don't think it was meant to be hacked/stolen by me. I'm only using it as tester for my own needs atm....lol.

I've no programing knowlledge what so ever. I've toyed with XSDK (Xbox SDK) , mainly for debug & capture features and that's about it. Hell I even have troubles writing a cmd file with If or For statements .

I'll keep poking arround with it in my spare time.
Cheers

Very useful utility. I suggest adding some more formats, e.g.

- Generic Zlib/Flate-compressed streams (many "unknown" installers use Flate/Zlib compression, so this would be *very* useful)
- Nullsoft Installers (NSIS) + Bzip2 and LZMA compressions - open-source

This post has been edited by LLXX: Jan 21 2006, 02:51 AM

Does it support UPX ?

This post has been edited by LLXX: Jan 21 2006, 11:31 PM

I'm not familiar with this. Could you please direct me to information on how to decompress this type of file, as well as an example compressed file that I could test with? Assuming there are no technical limitations involved, I'd be happy to add support.


I'd love to add support for NSIS installers. If you'll check out my ToDo file, you'll see that it's one of the two specific formats that I'd still like to add. However, to my knowledge there's currently no possible way to extract files from NSIS installers. If you know of a way, please let me know!


By supporting UPX, do you mean simply de-UPXing a packed .exe? Or do you mean extracting files from self-extracting archives that have been further compressed with UPX? If it's the latter, then yes it does (for recognized signatures). If it's the former, however, it does not.

I had considered it, but didn't really see the value in it. Could you explain why this would be a useful feature? What practical benefit would it give you? I'm certainly open to it, but I'd like to know why.

Here's a *very* simple implementation that allows the decompression and compression of Zlib files: http://www.dogma.net/markn/articles/zlibtool/zlibtool.htm

I've been using that demo program above to manually unpack installers that use Flate/Zlib, and can say that it works quite well for the purpose.

Can you write a decompressor for it? It's open-source, so most of the decompression code is freely available and ready for use. Basically just the installer without the "installation" portion.

I downloaded the source code, but I have no way to build it. Do you know of any precompiled binaries I can download? If not, could you post/e-mail a binary you've built? Also, could you point me to an installer that uses this type of compression? If I have a binary that can do the extraction and test it on a package, I should be able to add support for it pretty easily.


You're definitely overestimating my programming abilities. :-) I can script like a madman, but I know very little about low-level development. As noted above, I can't even compile a simple, ready-made demo program under Windows (I'm a bit better in Linux, however).

If anyone ever does write an extractor for NSIS packages, I'll most definitely add support for it. Until then, however, I'm afraid there isn't much I can do.

This post has been edited by nitro322: Jan 26 2006, 03:18 AM

very nice, Great Job at that.

it would be great to create a tool that could extract files from NSIS installers. I'm not sure, but I saw a compressor that creates SFX archives very, very, very similar to NSIS installers. UHARC GUI. I don't know if the files are compressed the same way, but maybe someone could take a look at it.

I did a little bit of research on UHARC. It looks like this is a method of compression that can be used by NSIS when creating the installers, but after compression an SFX "wrapper" is applied to the package. This is what allows users to double-click on the setup.exe and begin the installation process. Without decoding that part, it's impossible to decompress anything encapsulated.

Shoot.

Yeah darn Nullsoft PiMP SFX

This post has been edited by war59312: Jan 29 2006, 08:23 AM

I noticed that this wonderful application uses 7zip technology. Is it possible to add file associations to Universal Extractor? Since it is like having 7zip installed, might as well use that functionality with *.zip and *.7z files as well. Just a thought.

I'm not sure I follow you. Are you talking about being able to right-click on files in Windows Explorer and extract from the context menu? If so, that capability is already included. You'll need to use the installer version, though, as the self-extracting version does not support this functionality.

If you're referring to something else, though, well.. you lost me. Could you please explain a little more?

Thanks.

Hi nitro322!
Any news about including NSIS installer?