WinUpack

Portable WinUpack represents a graphical interface for Upack, a command-line program used to create self-extracting archives from Windows PE files.

As the name says, this application is portable. It means that you can drop the executable file anywhere on the hard disk and just click it to run.

An alternative is to save a copy of Portable WinUpack to a USB flash disk or similar device to run the app on any PC easily, without previously installing anything.

What's more, the Windows registry does not get updated with new entries (which frequently happens with installers), and no additional files are created on the HDD without the user's consent.

The interface is made from a regular window with a plain but intuitive structure, where you can point out EXE, DLL, OCX or SCR files using either the file browser or drag-and-drop support. Batch processing is not possible.

When it comes to packing options, you can ask Portable WinUpack to create backups of the original files, preserve extra file information, strip the export and base relocation table, skip icon compression, use force when packing suspicious PE files, as well as to retain the original file dates and times, among others. The frame can be set to stay on top of other windows. Before initializing the compression job, you can run a simulation to view potential issues.

The straightforward piece of software runs on a very low quantity of CPU and RAM, so it does not burden overall performance. It is very responsive to commands and works well on later operating systems, although it has not been updated for a while. We have not come across any issues in our tests.