WWPACK

File Format
Name	WWPACK
Ontology	Electronic File Formats Compression Executable compression WWPACK
Released	1994

WWPACK is an executable compression utility for DOS, developed by Piotr Warezak and Rafal Wierzbicki. Its main feature is compression of EXE files.

See also WWPack32, a related utility for Windows.

Discussion

The WWPACK documentation is inconsistent about some things, such as which versions were released, the release date of v3.00, and which versions have the "U" decompression feature. The information here is based on evidence, and educated guesswork.

The first released version was 3.00 (1994-11-16?). Earlier 1.x and 2.x versions existed, and are described in the v3.00 documentation, but none of them seem to have leaked to the internet. Prior to v3.00, WWPACK only compressed the DOS "relocation table". It became a full-fledged executable compression utility as of v3.00.

WWPACK (v3.00+) can also compress arbitrary data files. Such files are compressed using the "PD" command, and decompressed with "UD".

Version 3.03+ can also compress COM files, converting them to EXE.

The registered version of WWPACK v3.03+ has a "U" command, to decompress (some) executable files compressed with WWPACK.

Identification

EXE files compressed by WWPACK probably have ASCII "WWP" at offset 28.

Data files compressed by WWPACK begin with "WWP".

Software

• WWPACK
  • v3.00
  • v3.01: Best of Walnut Creek CD ROM (April 1995) → DISCS/SIMTEL/WWP301.ZIP
  • v3.02
  • v3.02a
  • v3.03
  • v3.04
  • v3.04a
  • v3.04a with German installer and documentation
  • v3.05 beta 3
  • v3.05 beta 5

Ed. note: Some versions of WWPACK will refuse to run unless the timestamp of the WWPACK.EXE file is exactly correct. For v3.04, it must be 1996-01-06 03:04:00am. For v3.04a, it must be 1996-01-21 03:04:00am.

For some utilities that might be able to decompress WWPACK-compressed EXE files, see Executable compression#Decompression software.