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. 1
    Open 7Zip File manager (7zFM.exe)
  2. 2
    Find the Files, which can be anything, and then click the big green "Add" button.
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  3. 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. 4
    Set any other settings you might need
  5. 5
    Click OK and you will be finished
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Community Q&A

  • Question
    How do I use a specific path automatically?
    Community Answer
    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.
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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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Things You'll Need

About This Article

Tested by:
wikiHow Technology Team
wikiHow is a “wiki,” similar to Wikipedia, which means that many of our articles are co-written by multiple authors. To create this article, 13 people, some anonymous, worked to edit and improve it over time. This article has been viewed 400,377 times.
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Co-authors: 13
Updated: March 29, 2023
Views: 400,377
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