UniExtract 1.6.1 in development - info requested

[jaclaz]

Canot say if it counts an indirect bug report or as an idea/suggestion:

http://tinyapps.org/blog/windows/201004070600_unpack_extract_msi_files.html

It seems like these Debugging Tools for Windows cannot be extracted with UniExtract but can with the tool from jsware:

http://www.jsware.net/jsware/msicode.php5#unplin

jaclaz

[TheGuysGuysGuy]

I'd love to see Uniextract's context menu items in its own subcategory, similar to 7zip. My feeling is that anything with with over 3 items in my right click context menu, needs its own sub category. I'm attaching a picture of what my context menu looks like now, as well as 7zip's sub menu.

And thanks for the great product man. =)

Edited April 15, 2011 by TheGuysGuysGuy

[exogenesis]

Actualy since i have two or more uniextractor version running. I would welcome also as with post above but with title [example 'UniExtract v1.61'] seperate for each version i have installed. Easy then to right mouse button select and mouse over for each UniExtract option available.

[D.Draker]

On 5/8/2010 at 7:00 AM, nitro322 said:

mslz

This is absolutely awesome ! Thank you ! I'd like to ask is there a chance to pack mslz file back ? Perhaps you know ... or perhaps @jaclaz knows . I think he knows everything ! Thanks.

Edited August 6, 2021 by D.Draker
asking jaclaz

[jaclaz]

Well, jaclaz knows a lot about very few things and a little about lots of things.

Compression is not one of the fields I know a lot about, but from the little I know the mslz format does not actually exist .

It probably is one of the many LZ (Lempel Ziv) based compression formats used by MS, as such likely it can be made using compress, makecab, diamond or a similar oldish MS compressor.

Try analyzing it with TriD:

https://mark0.net/soft-trid-e.html

maybe it finds a "better" name for the format.

jaclaz

.

[D.Draker]

jaclaz , thank you for the reply ! Well , yes , there's no such format per se , yet Universal extractor extracts such files perfectly , in fact it is the only one that was able to extract without issues ! Cab archivers , including makecab.exe and the other oldies will create MSZip type of compression, but this one I need is MsLZ. 7-zip says the file type is MsLZ.

Perhaps it has nothing to do with "MS" because it's "Ms" . Lempel Ziv are usually LZ4 or LZO https://github.com/jibsen/brieflz

That's why I asked the author because if they wrote an extraction algorithm perhaps they know what it is . This was the first and only search result on MSFN !

 

[jaclaz]

7 hours ago, D.Draker said:

jThat's why I asked the author because if they wrote an extraction algorithm perhaps they know what it is . This was the first and only search result on MSFN !

Yes, but No. 

Meaning that the Universal Extractor is not a decompression tool  and the Author(s) never actually wrote even a single line of decompressing code/algorithms in it.

The tool is a "repository" of existing decompressing/decoding tools nicely integrated and with a nice "detection" engine that attempts to recognize the compression format used in the file and "pipes" the file to the most suitable decompressing tool in the repository (passing to it besides the file also the right parameters and what not).

If you prefer it is a meta-decompression tool.

To find which (if any) compressing tool can create that specific format there are mainly three ways to get more data for searching it:
1) identify the exact compression format by using the suggested TrID or similar software
2) analyze the behaviour of Universal Extractor and find out which specific decompression tool is used (and possibly with which parameters), from the post by Nitro322 you referenced the used tool is 7-zip, so any post-2010 version of it[1] should be able to decompress the files directly, as it does for a huge number of other formats
3) check the file signature (usually - but not always - the first or last few bytes, i.e. unique header or footer), if you have two of these compressed files a hex compare between the two may be enough to find out which is the "fixed" part, possibly even FC would do

Or, if the file(s) are not huge (and can be shared), upload it(them) on a free file hosting site and post a link, and I'll have a look if I can find some more info.

jaclaz 

[1] https://www.7-zip.org/history.txt

Quote

9.06 beta 2009-08-17 ------------------------- - 7-Zip now can unpack MSLZ archives. - Partial parsing for EXE resources, SWF and FLV. - Some bugs were fixed.

  P.S.: Have you tried the mscompress?

http://gnuwin32.sourceforge.net/packages/mscompress.htm

Quote

Description

MsCompress is a Microsoft "compress.exe/expand.exe" compatible (de)compressor. This package contains two programs:

msexpand, which decompresses files compressed by Microsoft compress.exe utility (e.g. Win 3.x installation files)

mscompress, which compresses files using LZ77 compression algorithm. Output files can be decompressed using Microsoft expand.exe or msexpand(1).

AND check these:

https://www.cabextract.org.uk/libmspack/doc/szdd_kwaj_format.html

https://mark0.net/forum/index.php?topic=672.0

It seems that what 7-zip calls MSLZ is compress.exe made files, probably the SZDD kind, or - possibly - KWAJ option 2 or option 3.

Edited August 7, 2021 by jaclaz

[jaclaz]

Making a separate post to not further add to P.S. above.

I just tried the compress.exe (version 2.00) from here:

http://www.manmrk.net/tutorials/DOS/msdos.htm

to compress a file, and it creates a SZDD header archive file that 7-zip opens just fine and identifies as MsLZ.

Now, which (among the various versions of compress.exe, should the mscompress not work) tool might recreate the same type of compression as the file(s) you have is to be found out.

Some more related info:

https://www.betaarchive.com/forum/viewtopic.php?p=386809#p386809

jaclaz

[Dixel]

For those who are interested , there is a newer RC03 version from 2020 , extracts everything ! 

https://www.softpedia.com/get/Compression-tools/Universal-Extractor-Bioruebe.shtml

[horsecharless]

The RC3 version can update you to RC4 2022.

FYI it doesn't come with installer.

IF you wish for a regular installed program, you can use Nirsoft Zipinstaller to create UniExtract windows-installed program with pertinent shortcuts and uninstaller.

Edited June 1, 2022 by horsecharless
clarity