Create your own .exe file

Step 1: Open Run( press Win+R to open Run window), type iexpress and press Enter. iexpress 2.0 wizard will be opened like this.

Step 2: Select ‘Create new self extraction directive file’ and click on Next to continue.

(the option ‘Open existing self extraction directive file’ opens the already created .exe files with iexpress.)

Step 3: In this step, the package purpose has to be selected. By default, it will be set to ‘Extract files and run an installation command’. (You can select ‘Extract files only’ if you just want the files to be extracted into the specified directory. I recommend you to use the default option) . Click on Next leaving the default selection as it is.

Step 4: Give the title of the package i.e., a name to your installation .exe file and click Next. In my case I chose 'example package’ as my package title.

Step 5: In this step, you can create the prompt dialog to the user to confirm the installation. Choose Prompt user with option and type your prompt in case you wanted the installation be confirmed by the user( for example, prompt will be like this, “Do you really want to install this?” .

Choose No prompt if you don’t want to prompt user for confirmation( this option is selected by default) and click Next.

Step 6: Choose Display a license if you want to display a license agreement of your installation file. You will be asked to browser a text format of your license file. Then click on Next to continue. I chose the default option Do not display a license in this tutorial.

Step 7:  Add the files in to the package and click Next

Step 8: Select the programs or INF files to launch from the package after the installation. Custom launch command can also be given in the Install program field.

The Post install command will be <None> if you create a custom command.

Step 9: Select you installation window’s visibility during installation and click Next to continue.

Step 10: Select Display message and type the message if you want to display a message to the user after installation is complete. Otherwise choose No message.

Step 11: Browse the executable file of your package that is executed by the user which is used as installer. You can choose to check or uncheck the options given. Click on Next to continue.

Step 12: You can select how you want the system to restart at the end of the installation in this step.

Step 13: You can choose to save the information as SED(Self Extraction Directive) file. This saved information can be useful in modifying the package in future.

Step 14: Click on Next to start creating your package. Wait until the process completes.

You are done creating your own .exe file. Now test the file installing on your machine.