Combine multiple commands and executables into a single exe

Posted on November 21, 2008 at 5:13 am

What if you have multiple executable files that you want to distribute using a single executable file? Traditionally you will need to create a .bat file but that will mean you know how to program a .bat file and you know your way to the intricacies of manually packing executable files.

There is a free program called Wrapper that will help you complete that task of wrapping executables in no time. With it’s straightforward interface, all you have to is add executable files and press the Make button to generate a single executable file.

To get Wrapper you can download it from Download.com or go straight to it’s website: http://salarsoft.somee.com/.

The website is in Arabic but the software itself is in English. Unzip the package and double click Wrapper.exe to start making your executable projects:

Click Add File to begin adding executable files:

The add file window will appear. Enter the location of the executable file and make sure to check or uncheck the “Extract” box depending on your chosen file. If your file is a self extracting file (i.e. installers), make sure to enter the “extract directory” location. Press OK to add the file. In this case I entered “putty.exe” and since it is not a zipped file I unchecked the “Extract” box:

Another thing that you can add are typed-in commands like “firefox” that will open up a new firefox window or “notepad” to open a new notepad process. To start adding commands click the “Add Cmd” button:

Choose the lower option labeled “Run command” and then enter the command name and parameters of the command. In the example below I entered “firefox” and then entered “www.google.com” as parameter. Click OK to add the command to the list:

You should see all of your added commands and executable files on the list of items. You may change the order of execution by using the “Up” and “Down” arrows to the left:

After you are done adding executable files and commands you can generate the wrapped exe by entering the filename of the exe file you want. In the example below I entered “test.exe” as the output file.

Click “Make” to generate the output file:

You should be able to see the final output using Windows Explorer:

Running this file will execute the executables and files that we wrapped above. The size of the generated exe file will depend on the size of the exe files you add. The typed-in commands like “firefox” will not eat so much space since it only is a command to call Firefox (i.e. it will not contain the executable file itself).

Wrapper is a great tool for generating your own package of executables. Instead of sending separate executables and then instructing end users to execute separate commands, wrapped executables and commands will handle them all in one executable.

There are other features of Wrapper that you can use like adding a new registry entries, killing processes and deleting process files. With these features, we can tell that this is one powerful tool so be careful when using it.