Jsummers: Created page with "{{FormatInfo |formattype=electronic |subcat=Executable envelopes |extensions={{ext|ntr}} |released=1995 }} '''NETRUN''' is a DOS utility that creates ASCII-only [[DOS executab..."

2022-08-09T14:58:47Z

Created page with "{{FormatInfo |formattype=electronic |subcat=Executable envelopes |extensions={{ext|ntr}} |released=1995 }} '''NETRUN''' is a DOS utility that creates ASCII-only [[DOS executab..."

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{{FormatInfo
|formattype=electronic
|subcat=Executable envelopes
|extensions={{ext|ntr}}
|released=1995
}}
'''NETRUN''' is a DOS utility that creates ASCII-only [[DOS executable (.com)|COM]] files, suitable for inclusion in an email message. It was developed by Jim Tucker. It is a spin-off of [[NETPIC (Jim Tucker)|NETPIC]].

See [[Executable envelopes#Transfer-encoded executables]] for other executable formats of this sort.

== Discussion ==
NETRUN features:
* Convert a COM file to an ASCII-only COM file that runs like the original.
* Convert an EXE file to an ASCII-only COM file that, when executed, writes the original EXE file to a temporary disk file, then executes it. Only small EXE files are supported.
* Old versions (e.g. 2.2a) have a "self-extracting file" option (<code>-x</code>). It produces an ASCII-only COM file that, when executed, writes the original (generally non-executable) file to disk. Later, this feature was moved to a separate [[NETSEND]] utility.

The ASCII-encoded files are normally wrapped in some plain text instructions, telling you to use a text editor to save the payload data to a .COM file. There is a <code>-z</code> option to omit the wrapper, producing a file that can be executed directly (though you may have to rename it to end in ".COM").

== Identification ==
Ignoring any wrapper, files made by older versions (e.g. 2.2a) start with "{{magic|COM-PRG.COM}}". This does not distinguish them from some files made by [[NETPIC (Jim Tucker)|NETPIC]] (v1.0 with <code>-w</code> option). For NETRUN v2.2a, "{{magic|NETRUN}}" appears at offset 151.

Ignoring any wrapper, files made by newer versions (e.g. 3.10) begin with "{{magic|XPPPYZIQD}}". This does not distinguish them from [[NETSEND]] and some [[NETPIC (Jim Tucker)|NETPIC]] files. It's not clear how to reliably do that. For v3.10, at least, "{{magic|(c)1995.JIM.TUCKER}}" appears at offset 128.

== Software ==
* [https://archive.org/details/Simtel_MSDOS_1995-05 Simtel MSDOS May 1995] → Disc 2 → DISC2/DECODE/NETRUN22.ZIP - NETRUN v2.2a
* [{{SACFTPURL|utilfile|netrun31.zip}} NETRUN v3.10] (a.k.a. v3.1)

[[Category:Transfer Encodings]]
[[Category:Archiving]]

NETRUN - Revision history

Jsummers: Created page with "{{FormatInfo |formattype=electronic |subcat=Executable envelopes |extensions={{ext|ntr}} |released=1995 }} '''NETRUN''' is a DOS utility that creates ASCII-only [[DOS executab..."