InstallShield Self-Extracting EXE

File Format
Name	InstallShield Self-Extracting EXE
Ontology	Electronic File Formats Archiving InstallShield Self-Extracting EXE
Extension(s)	special

InstallShield Self-Extracting EXE is an executable installer file created by the InstallShield installation software for Windows.

This article is intended to cover only the outer-layer distribution file, and not the various executable and other component files that it may contain.

Not all editions of InstallShield supported creating self-extracting EXE files, and it's not uncommon to find InstallShield component files packaged in other ways (e.g. ZIP), or unpackaged.

[Ed. note: This article needs much more research and expansion.]

Identification

For at least one version (3?) of InstallShield, ASCII "InstallShield Self-Extracting Stub Program" appears beginning at offset 943.

Software

• STIX - Extracts from InstallShield v3 files. (DOS, OS/2)
  • stix.zip (from SAC)
  • [1] → stix.arj
  • https://github.com/DeclanHoare/stix/
• ISx - InstallShield installer extractor. Claims to support InstallShield versions released from about 2003 to 2016.
• IsXunpack.exe - For InstallShield v7. Can be found in Universal Extractor. Source is this forum post.
• InstallShield Setup Extract (Probably very limited support.)

Sample files

• 100+ Great Games CD → solcon.exe, bgf2int.exe, gamchest.exe

Wanted: Lots more samples from different versions of InstallShield.