We tried Inno Setup Unpacker with NoVirusThanks Stream Detector, for example, a handy tool for detecting and working on alternate data streams. The setup script can tell you a lot about the application, and you don’t have to be a developer to find it useful. Unpacking installers isn’t just about looking at the source files, of course. We would only try this on relatively simple applications, and on systems which are fully backed up. If the application crashes your PC or causes some data loss because it’s not been installed correctly - unlikely, but not impossible - then it’s your responsibility. There are no guarantees, though, so keep in mind that you’re on your own here. If it’s something very simple, maybe a readme file, an internet shortcut, one executable, perhaps a DLL, then you can probably run it immediately without using the official installer. The command tells Inno Setup Unpacker to extract the components of setup.exe into the current folder.Īssuming this is an Inno Setup installer, the unpacker will probably produce an iss file, like install_script.iss - the script which holds the instructions for the installer - and an folder with the application’s various components.Ĭheck the folder to see what it contains. There are command line switches to list file contents, test for integrity, define paths and so on, but you can get by with nothing more than this: It’s an open-source command-line tool which arrives as a very tiny download (134KB), and once unpacked it’s ready to go.īasic usage is simple enough. (It won’t work with other types of setup files, but Inno is so popular that you’ve a good chance of success.)Īs you’d expect with this kind of tool, Inno Setup Unpacker doesn’t require installation itself. Inno Setup Unpacker takes the process further by extracting both the application files and the setup script of Inno Setup installers. This only gets you the source files, so there’s no information on what the installer was going to do, but just seeing the contents of your particular setup.msi might be useful.

Install 7-Zip, for instance, and you’ll be able to right-click Windows Installer files (*.MSI) and extract their contents. At a minimum you’ll get a better idea what your particular setup.exe contains, and you may find you can extract and run small applications without installing them at all.Īrchiving software can often do this, at a basic level. One way to avoid this is to extract the contents of your setup file before you run it.

D setup rsrc cod2.exe