I tried to extract an *.exe file with 7-Zip as well as with X-UniExtract. But in both cases without any success. Indeed I've gotten some extracted files, which seems to be not the files, that are contained in the *.exe file. Is there an explainable reason for this behaviour?
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EXEs are not archives. 7-Zip is not supposed to be able to extract them. It can extract some installers with supported compression formats (like or NSIS installers than use LZMA). UniExtract attempts to go one further and do some others, but it is FAR from perfect and won't work or will work incorrectly on all sorts of installers. It's also abandoned and completely unsupported.
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Due to your explanations under No. 2 of Regshot Guidelines: How To Post Relevant Bits Without Breaking The Site I must install the app on a different PC and copy the operating files out of Program Files onto a flash drive and then move it to the PC I will be testing/regshotting on (in the case if I can't extract the files with 7-Zip).
In my case, I install it within a clean WinXP VM. But you can easily install it on one PC, grab the files, uninstall it, then take those files to PC that's never had the app and regshot it there. Note that the best option is a clean VM since you know you're not getting any changes from any other apps on the system.
Sometimes, the impossible can become possible, if you're awesome!
Your recommendation for using a clean VM seems to be the optimal solution. In the meantime I've remembered on another profound Regshot user's guide. Under No. 1 of this guide is described the usage of the Inno Setup Unpacker in such cases, where 7-Zip or X-UniExract are unable to extract the setup file.