SC - Compiling by yourself

Ghost · Post by **Ghost** » 2004-12-03 11:52

Is it possible to compile the single click ultra by yourself?? Possibly with BCC55... I don't think it will be so difficult...
[mod=2,1121589299]Modified title (added \"SC\")[/mod]

VirtualMe · Post by **VirtualMe** » 2005-07-14 23:55

I hate to bring up old threads, but I too would be interested in compiling a SC .exe on my own machine. Any possibility of this?

CarlRodabaugh · Post by **CarlRodabaugh** » 2005-07-16 11:58

Ok, Lets start

1. First, we need to download some tools.

Lets make a c:\sc folder.
Lets also make a folder called c:\tools.
We are going to save all downloads to c:\tools

7-Zip.
This is the tool that actually makes the self extracting exe. 7-Zip is a free archive tool, and is hosted by Sourceforge @ http://www.7-zip.org
I would recommend going to their website, and downloading the latest beta of theirsoftware. At the time of writing this, http://www.7-zip.org/dl/7z424.exe is the latest. We also need to download the SFX extensions, at http://prdownloads.sourceforge.net/seve ... ra.tar.bz2

ResHacker
ResHacker is really only needed if you want to change the final icon on the exe that you distribute to others. It is a freeware tool, and can be more information about it can be obtained at http://www.angusj.com/resourcehacker, and it can be downloaded from http://www.angusj.com/resourcehacker/reshack.zip

UPX
UPX is a great tool that makes most executables smaller. It is hosted by sourceforge at http://upx.sourceforge.net and the latest version can be obtained at http://upx.sourceforge.net/download/uns ... px193w.zip

Custom.zip
This is the basis for SC. We need to download it from http://sc.uvnc.com/custom.zip and unzip it into a folder.
Once we have downloaded custom.zip, we need to go to the SC Creator at http://sc.uvnc.com/index.php?section=19
And upload our zip file. We only need to do this once, just to get some files from Rudy that I haven’t seen anywhere else to get them.
Username foo, password foobar. Upload the file, and download the resulting exe to c:\sc

2. Installation of Necessary tools \ Creation of necessary folders.

Lets install 7zip into the default folder,
Then extract the .bz2 file into the tools folder.

Lets install ResHacker. There really isn't an installation, just unzipping it. Lets unzip it to c:\tools as well.

Lets install UPX. It is the same as ResHacker. Just unzip it to the c:\tools folder.

Lets go open custom.exe that we downloaded before. Right click on it, and choose open archive. This will open the 7-Zip file manager, and we can select all the files, and hit the extract button. Lets extract them all to the c:\sc folder.

Lets also create a file that we are going to need later.

Open notepad, and paste the following

;!@Install@!UTF-8!
;Title=""
;BeginPrompt=""
RunProgram="winvnc.exe"
;!@InstallEnd@!

Into a new file, and save it in c:\tools, as config.txt This is a file that will be used later by 7zip to help us create our exe.

3. Modify your background.bmp \ helpdesk.txt \ icon1.ico \ icon2.ico \ logo.bmp appropriately.

The steps to do that will not be covered in depth in this article. For more info on how to do this, go to
http://sc.uvnc.com/index.php?section=13 or http://sc.uvnc.com/index.php?section=14

4. Lets get creating our exe.

Lets create a 7-zip archive from the contents of c:\sc. Make sure that you do not include custom.zip or custom.exe, As it will make your archive larger than necessary. If you select all the files, and right click, and choose create archive. You should get a 7-Zip window that opens, and is asking you to “Add to archive”. I always set the lower options to:
Archive Format: 7z
Compression level: Ultra
Compression Method: LZMA
Dictionary size: 8 MB
Word size: 255

But feel free to increase as you feel necessary. If you have more ram in your pc, By all means, change the dictionary size to 64 mb, or even higher. The higher you can go, the smaller your resulting file will be.

Click ok when you are done, and it will create a sc.7z file for you in c:\sc.
Now, lets go back to the Command Prompt, and make it an exe.

Start, run, cmd.exe (nt/2k/xp)
Start, run, command.com (9x, ME)
c:
cd c:\sc
copy /b c:\tools\7zsd.sfx + c:\tools\config.txt +sc.7z sc.exe
(or whatever you want the new exe to be named)
exit

Ok, we have an exe. If you want to change the icon of the final exe, open it in reshacker, and go to tools, change icon. Choose the new icon, click replace, then save it (I usually save it as a new name, just incase something goes wrong, you have a backup.)

Now, last but not least, we need to compress it again. (7Zip help file says that if you use the SFX for installers, you will benefit from using UPX, as the Installer SFX are not compressed.)

Start, run, cmd.exe (nt/2k/xp)
Start, run, command.com (9x, ME)
cd c:\sc
c:\tools\upx –9 sc.exe

Done.

Post by **Oliver** » 2005-07-16 12:24

I'd recommend to avoid using UPX. Especially since the whole thing is bundled by 7-Zip!

VirtualMe · Post by **VirtualMe** » 2005-07-16 14:52

Thanks CarlRodabaugh. The only problem I have is I do not have this file: 7zsd.sfx. I looked in the install location for 7-Zip, and then did a search of my hard drive. I do have 7z.sfx, 7zC.sfx, 7zCon.sfx. Any ideas?

Post by **Oliver** » 2005-07-17 08:36

7z.sfx should do. I don't remember exactly how I did it - Rudi had asked me to help with SC in the first place but then did not use my solution - but I may have a look whether and where I can find it.

VirtualMe · Post by **VirtualMe** » 2005-07-17 20:28

Well I followed along with all the directions, minus having the 7zsd.sfx file. When I'm finished making the .exe it has the 7z icon, and when I try to run it, it acts like a self extracting archive and asks me where I want to extract the files to.

CarlRodabaugh · Post by **CarlRodabaugh** » 2005-07-18 13:45

Sorry about that, I was off for the weekend. Well, It looks like I missed something. I had an older install of 7Zip on my computer, previous to 4.17. then, I upgraded. Along the way, they took some of the SFX modules out, and put them in a seperate download,

(From 7Zip's Forum... )
7-zip 4.17 changelog:
- Some files were moved from main package to extra package:
- Plugin for FAR Manager
- SFX modules for installers (7zS.sfx and 7zSD.sfx)

So, the file we really need, is located at http://prdownloads.sourceforge.net/seve ... ra.tar.bz2

Once you have downloaded and unpacked this file to your tools folder, you will have the proper SFX modules. (Only the ones that support "Installer mode" will automagically launch the file specified in the config.txt file. The rest ignore it, and prompt you where to extract the files to.)

So, Go give it a try now

As to the UPX, I know Rudy is using it in the actual creator ( [topic=1789][/topic] ) and I've built ~10 versions now, for multiple people, and never had any issues.

C

Post by **Rudi De Vos** » 2005-07-18 14:22

Only use upx for the installer modules (7zS.sfx or 7zSD.sfx)

Don't use upx for the other files...
(exe) upx+7zip generates bigger files then only using 7zip.

The online creator
1) Change icon .sfx
2) upx .sfx
3) 7zip all other files (generate archieve)
4) copy /b .sfx config and 7zip archieve

Parts of the cgi responsible for the compression and archieve
-----------------------------------------------------------------
7z e %1.zip -y <<-----UNZIP your uploaded zip
replaceicon ultravnc.sfx icon1.ico
upx --best --crp-ms=999999 --nrv2b Ultravnc.sfx
7z a -mx=9 -t7z UltraVncSC.7z winvnc.exe vnchooks.dll rc4.key MSRC4Plugin.dsm helpdesk.txt icon1.ico icon2.ico logo.bmp background.bmp enter.bmp
copy /b UltraVnc.sfx + config.txt + UltraVncSC.7z UltraVncSC.exe
-------------------------------------------------------------------

netwolf · Post by **netwolf** » 2005-07-18 16:48

That's a really great and very detailed explanation by CarlRodabaugh, that IMO deserves a place in the FAQ !

VirtualMe · Post by **VirtualMe** » 2005-07-23 17:28

Thanks for all your help guys, especially CarlRodabaugh. It now works perfectly.