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Asked: 2026-06-03T04:03:43+00:00

The setuptools installer for Windows 7 x86 is named an exe file, but can

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The setuptools installer for Windows 7 x86 is named an exe file, but can be opened as a zip file. When I peek into it, there are two top level folders: PURELIB and SCRIPTS. What are these, and how is it that when I double click on this exe, Windows runs it for me, although it’s a zip file? That is, how does Windows know what to run inside this zip/exe? Thanks.

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  1. Editorial Team

    What are these, and how is it that when I double click on this exe,
    Windows runs it for me, although it’s a zip file?

    From http://zziplib.sourceforge.net/sfx-make.html

    The basic scheme goes like this: the final file will have an EXE
    starting at offset null, followed by the data entries of a ZIP
    archive. The last part of the ZIP archive is the ZIP central-directory
    which ends at the end of the file.

    The magic is possible because exe format allows any data to be appended to the executable and zip format allows any data to be prepended to the archive.

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