Eschalon Setup archive

Eschalon Setup archive (.ARV) is a compressed archive format used in installation packages created by the Eschalon Setup line of installation software for Windows 3.x, by Eschalon Development and Robert Salesas.

It is apparently the successor to EDI Install archive.

Discussion
This format might also be named something like "ARCV version 2". For ARCV version 1, see EDI Install archive.

Most packages contain exactly two files in this format, named "setup.arv" and "setupmn.arv".

Multi-file archives are possible. The first file uses extension .arv, then .a02, .a03, etc.

Identification
All known files start with bytes. A less strict pattern would be.

The byte at offset 5 is the high byte of the format version number. For version, see EDI Install archive.

ASCII "" appears at the offset given by the two-byte integer (or byte?) at offset 6. This offset seems to always be 14.

Software
Extraction:
 * Computer Thuis in Bedrijf → ctib98_3/ESTPPRO/EXTRACT.EXE - Extractor utility for DOS

Eschalon Setup distributions:
 * Computer Thuis in Bedrijf → ctib98_3/ESTPPRO/ - Eschalon Setup Pro
 * Computer Thuis in Bedrijf → ctib98_3/ESTPPRO/ - Eschalon Setup Pro

Sample files

 * → *.ARV
 * → *.ARV
 * Personal Computer World September 1996 → HTML/RES/RESOURCE/GENERAL/KNEX.ZIP → *.arv, *.a0?

Editors' notes
This article needs more research, to figure out what editions of Eschalon Setup and related software exist, and what formats each of them use. There is also an Eschalon Setup 2 for Windows 95, which has not been evaluated.

Installing an application that uses .ARV format does not give any clue as to what installation software was used. The SETUP.EXE installer program does not even have any embedded strings naming the software, though it does contain "Robert Salesas".