Extract files from Setup Archive

[kanderson]

Hey all -

I've got a bit of an interesting problem here. We create/distribute multimedia titles on CD-ROM (usually 2 discs per title), and have been using Setup Factory (4 and 5) for a few years now to make the installers for the titles.

We now have a new product which can act as a front-end for all these other multimedia titles, and uses the data from those original CDs. I want to create a slick installation tool for the 'master front-end' which gets the files from the already-burned CDs. The problem is, some of the files I need are stored in the setup.exe archive.

Is there any way (without launching the setup.exe on each of those discs) to extract the stored files inside the setup archive? (ie: in the same manner as one would extract a file from a .zip archive)

I haven't been able to figure a way around this one, and would like to use the existing (packaged) CD-ROMs if possible.

Thanks,

Kendall Anderson

[Lorne]

Re: Extract files from Setup Archive

I don't think there's any way to do that without re-authoring the CDs.

You could try running the appropriate setups in silent mode (depending on the version of SF they were created with) to install the files silently...but it doesn't sound like that'll quite do the trick.

If this involves a lot of CDs and the cost to reauthor them would be very high, you could maybe try contacting our consulting department...they might be able to write a custom application that could extract the data from the setup.exe. Of course, that route might be a bit expensive.

[Lorne]

Re: Extract files from Setup Archive

If you can re-author the CDs, you could redesign the setups to do things silently based on settings that your front end places in the Registry (for just one example).

[kanderson]

Re: Extract files from Setup Archive

Unfortunately this is an issue of wanting to reuse something in a way in which it was never intended. I was hoping for a 'get out of jail free' card but it seems like I'll be starting over from scratch.

Thanks for the responses!


Kendall