WinZip Self-Extractor Personal Edition

1 users found this article helpful

WinZip Self-Extractor Personal Edition is a separate and complete application included with WinZip at no extra cost to licensed users (under the terms of the WinZip License Agreement). The Personal Edition is a simplified version of our full-featured, separately licensed product, WinZip Self-Extractor, and can be used to create standard self-extracting Zip files.


A self-extracting Zip file is an executable program (.EXE file) that includes a Zip file and software to extract or unzip the contents of the Zip file.

Users can extract files from a self-extracting Zip file by double-clicking it, with no additional program needed. This makes self-extracting Zip files a particularly good choice for distributing data to beginning users who are not familiar with using Zip files or Zip file utilities. Please make sure that you review the list of features available in the full WinZip Self-Extractor product that are not available in the Personal Edition.

To start WinZip Self-Extractor Personal Edition, create a Legacy Zip file with WinZip (Note: WinZip Self-Extractor Personal Edition does not support creating self-extractors from Zipx files). Then, while the Zip file is still open, click the Tools tab and click Self-Extracting EXE (XP users; choose Make.Exe File from the Actions menu). Unless you have specified a different program in the Make Exe field in the Miscellaneous tab of the WinZip Options dialog, the WinZip Self-Extractor Personal Edition dialog box will be displayed.

The WinZip Self-Extractor Personal Edition dialog box contains the following fields:

When you span a self-extracting Zip file using WinZip Self-Extractor, no special software is required during extraction. Your users will simply be prompted to insert the next diskette or other removable media in the multiple volume set at the appropriate time during extraction. The following choices determine whether you want to make use of the spanning feature with your removable media, and which method to use.

The last choice in the self-extracting Zip file's dialog box is the Overwrite by default option, which controls whether or not users are prompted to overwrite an existing file of the same name during the unzip operation.

Click the OK button to create the self-extracting Zip file. Be sure to test the file in all target environments before distributing it.

Note: If you are using WinZip Self-Extractor Personal Edition or WinZip Self-Extractor, you should be aware of some restrictions. Neither WinZip Self-Extractor Personal Edition nor WinZip Self-Extractor 4.0 can create self-extracting Zip files if the original Zip file:

Was this article helpful?

Tell us how we can improve it.