LegRoom.net Kick back and relax

I made available a beta version of the upcoming v1.6 release of Universal Extractor last night. I'm not making it available through the UniExtract home page because it's only a beta; it needs a lot of testing before official release. However, if you're interested in testing some of the new features and providing feedback on your results, you can find find change details and download links in this MSFN UniExtract forum post.

I just posted updates to my Inno Setup CLI Help and Modify Path Inno Setup scripts. The CLI Help is a fairly small update - it just includes updated documentation for the latest version of Inno Setup.

The ModPath update is a bit more substantial; I added the ability to add multiple directories to the system path instead of just a single directory. Usually this capability should not be necessary, but I had a need to do this for the new version of Universal Extractor that's currently in development. If you're currently using an older version of the script, though, be sure to read the updated directions. This new version is not directly compatible with older versions and requires a few small changes to your main installer script.

The updates can be download from each script's home page:
Inno Setup CLI Help
Modify Path

JST posted a good question a while back in the Universal Extractor forum. He wanted to know if any executable files (such as installers) were actually run during the extraction process. For the vast majority of files, UniExtract will "rip" the contents out of the file using a extraction/decompression utility. For example, Inno Setup installers are handled by innounp, self-extracting Zip files are handled by 7-Zip or Info-ZIP, etc. However, there also cases where some files simply must be executed in order to extract the contents.

JST was concerned about this because he sometimes uses Universal Extractor to investigate malicious files. Obviously you want to be very careful when examining malicious files, so his concern was well justified. He asked for a list of file types that UniExtract will actually execute when extracting. It took me a while to get around to documented this, but I've finally done so. You can read the full list in this forum thread:

Are any files executed during extraction?

This is good information to know, especially if you ever work with suspicious files. I'm probably going to add this information to the main UniExtract page as well, and will look into possibly adding a warning message to UniExtract itself before executing any untrusted files.

I'm sure that everyone reading this site is aware of the fact that Windows Vista has made some rather drastic changes to the underlying OS in the name of security. Some of these are good and overdue changes; some, however, are freakin' brain dead (you can see my last post for a very brief summary of my feelings about Vista from a user's perspective). Regardless of my personal feelings, the fact is Vista is here and it's install base is only going to grow as people purchase new PCs. Given that I maintain a few applications for Windows, I have to take Vista into consideration and make sure that my apps continue to play nicely on Microsoft's current and future operation systems.

Unfortunately, I'm rather late to this party. Until just recently I have had no direct exposure with Vista; I even managed to go through the entire alpha, beta, and release candidate stages of Vista without seeing a Vista system a single time. Needless to say, once it was released I began receiving notices that Universal Extractor has Vista compatibility issues. I'm sure AutoFLAC does as well, but I guess those users are a bit less demanding. :-) (I say that in jest, of course - the UniExtract community over on the MSFN forum has been fantastic!)

The good news is that I finally do have access to a Vista system. I can't stand using it (again, see my last post if you want to know how I really feel about it), but it can at least serve as a test box for UniExtract and AutoFLAC. The next couple revisions of each will focus on Vista compatibility, and in anticipation of this I've begun doing some research into the Vista changes that most affect applications and installers. I'm post some of the more useful links I've found both for my own reference and for anyone else that may benefit from this information.

New ACLs Improve Security in Windows Vista - detailed article about many of the changes to user and administrator privileges, file system and registry permissions, etc.; very informative, though highly technical

File and Registry Virtualization – the good, the bad, and the ugly - discussion about the compatibility features provided by Vista to allow older "non-compliant" applications to install and function properly

Vista considerations - small write-up on the Inno Setup Knowledge Base discussing Inno-specific considerations

Vista FAQ and INNO Vista and XP questions - two Inno Setup newsgroup discussion threads concerning Vista compatibility

I know there's a lot more information out there, and I'll probably update this post as I come across it, but this will get me started. Do you know of any other good resources? Please post a comment!

I'll probably follow this up with more coherent and reasoned thoughts when I get some free time and am better rested, but for now I just felt the need to share my feelings.

That is all.