How To Store Files In An EXE

Question

Alright, so I\'m working on programming my own installer in C#, and what I\'d like to do is something along the lines of put the files in the .exe, so I can do File.Copy(fi

Answer 1

I wouldn't code my own installer, but if you truely want to embed files into your assembly you could use strongly typed resources. In the properties dialog of your project open up the "Resources" tab and then add your file. You'll then be able to get the file using:

ProjectNamespace.Properties.Resources.MyFile

Then you'll be able to write the embedded resource to disk using:

System.IO.File.WriteAllBytes(@"C:\MyFile.bin", ProjectNamespace.Properties.Resources.MyFile);

Answer 2

Honestly, I would suggest you NOT create your own installer. There are many many issues with creating installers. Even the big installer makers don't make their own actual installers anymore, they just create custom MSI packages.

Use Mirosoft Installer (MSI). It's the right thing to do. Make your own custom front-end for it, but don't recreate the already very complex wheel that exists.

UPDATE: If you're just doing this for learning, then I would shy away from thinking of it as "an installer". You might be tempted to take your "research" and use it someday, and frankly, that's how we end up with so many problems when new versions of Windows come out. People create their own wheels with assumptions that aren't valid.

What you're really trying to do is called "packaging", and you really have to become intimately familiar with the Executable PE format, because you're talking about changing the structure of the PE image on disk.

You can simulate it, to a point, with putting files in resources, but that's not really what installers, or self-extractors do.

Here's a link to Self-Extractor tutorial, but it's not in C#.

I don't know enough about the .NET PE requirements to know if you can do this in with a managed code executable or not.

UPDATE2: This is probably more of what you're looking for, it embeds files in the resource, but as I said, it's not really the way professional installers or self-extractors do it. I think there are various limitations on what you can embed as resources. But here's the like to a Self-Extractor Demo written in C#.

Answer 3

in case you simply want to store multiple files in a single file storage (and extract files from there, interact etc.) you might also want to check out NFileStorage, a .net file storage. written in 100% .NET C# with all sources included. It also comes with a command line interpreter that allows interaction from the command line.

Answer 4

I'm guessing here, but if you are trying to store resources in your application before compilation, you can in the Project Explorer, right click a file you would like to add, chose properties and change the type to Embedded Resource.

You can then access the embedded resources later by using the instructions from this KB: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/319292