How to Use 7Zip to Create Self Extracting excutables

Last Updated: March 29, 2023 Tested

7-Zip is a handy little tool that allows you to manipulate the most common types of archive files. This article explains how to use it to create a self-extracting archive, which is an archive that extracts all files to a directory upon its opening.

Steps

1
Open 7Zip File manager (7zFM.exe)
2
Find the Files, which can be anything, and then click the big green "Add" button.

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3
Make the archive format a .7z (under archive format of course) and look for the create SFX archive which should work after making the archive format .7z
4
Set any other settings you might need
5
Click OK and you will be finished

Community Q&A

Question

How do I use a specific path automatically?

Community Answer

Using 7Zip, you can't. There are a lot of other archiving programs (such as WinRAR) that can do it, but I would recommend that you just tell people to extract it to the specified directory as it's a much simpler interface.

Warnings

Don't open an .exe if you are not sure of its origin. In this case, it is not a problem, since you created the .exe file in the first place because you know what it will do.

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Use anti-virus software to protect your computer from malicious software, and to scan the files prior to putting them in the archive.

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