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I think Ark should handle win32 self extracting archives (.exe) without the need to install wine just to uncompress them.

I'm not sure, but I think these self extracting archives are just zip files with a small program to uncompress in them, if I remember right from the time I used Windows, winzip and winrar can open them just as zip files.

It depends, there are self-extracting zip files, but I think there are self-extracting rar and perhaps even 7zip archives as well. I agree it would be good if it is possible to figure out what the underlying archive type is.

TheBlackCat wrote:it would be good if it is possible to figure out what the underlying archive type is.

I made some experiment myself: I've downloaded a self extracting archive and opened with Okteta. The first part is the executable, after that there is the archive, starting with the hash that identify the type (in my case 7zip).

I cutted out the first part and created a new file starting with the hash of the archive: it works! Ark can handle the archive and extracts the files.

Maybe I put it too simple, but what about telling Ark when we try to open an exe file with it to check for a known archive hash in the first part of the file and simply ignore everything before that point?

At least on other programs the extracting is possible without executing the EXE function itself, unless the package is someway coded.

7zip can extract self-extracting zip files it seems. I haven't tried it for other self-extracting files.