If you ever worked with deployment, you know the issue where you need an .MSI file or other driver files but all the vendor is supplying is a SETUP.EXE file.

Well many .EXE files can via some obscure parameters /Extract /B or whatever be extracted, but as all vendors use different utilities to create their .EXE files it can be hard to figure out how to expand them, plus some .EXE files actually can not be extracted (or is not designed to)..  Usually WinRAR is a good bet, it can actually extract many .EXE filetypes..  but not all 🙁

Fear no more, Uniextract to the rescue…  maybe it wont extract ALL but atleast it extracted many of the files I had problems with, so big thumbs up from me..  It is quite easy to use, once installed just right click on the .EXE file and select extract to subdirectory..  Easy as pie 😀

http://legroom.net/software/uniextract

For those who can not afford a copy of WinRAR (www.rarlabs.com) to open .rar files a compatible freeware program is available called LZArc (not to be confused with LHarc from the good old Amiga age).

It will not win any awards for its simple but useful layout, but hey you cant get everything for nothing.

Download it from here
http://www.izarc.org/

;lzarc.png

Just finished installing my first Microsoft Windows 2008 Enterprise server, nice 🙂

Most disturbing is that it will actually go into production right away, we need some of the new group policy management features..  oh well..

Looks quite nice btw.

So you cant wait to try out SP3 for XP or SP1 for Vista!?

Well, there is a way to squeeze your way into the MS-Beta program 🙂

http://4sysops.com/archives/download-windows-xp-sp3-rc1-with-this-little-hack/

I am still thinking about it, I had some problems with IE7 beta so I am slightly reluctant.  For XP users however it should according to some posts be quite a boost in performance.