Problem:You need to open an .exe file but you have a Mac®.
- Runs on: Mac OS X, Mac OS X 10.1, Mac OS X 10.2, Mac OS X 10.3, Mac OS X 10.4, Mac OS X 10.5, Mac OS X 10.6, Mac OS X 10.7, Mac OS X 10.8, Mac OS X 10.9 Related: Open Exe On Mac - Open Exe Power Mac - Exe View Open - Open Exe Files - Exe Password Open.
- To prevent the extra software from installing you need to open up the '.exe' or '.msi' file on your computer. When you do this you will see all the contents within the '.exe' or '.msi' independently accessible. Note: The video tutorial below shows you how to extract an '.exe' file but it will work the same way to extract an '.msi' file.
Solution:You can easily open an .exe from your Mac by using Parallels Desktop® for Mac.
I frequently get questions like this from Mac users:
My friend asked me to download a file named Paint-tool-sai.exe, but I can’t open it on my Mac. How can I open this file?
From a person who only uses Mac computers and iPads, this is a very reasonable question.
A lot of them have Mac versions if you are lucky. Exe filename or subl. Files and Folders certain administrative settings for all users on this Mac. For some reasons, your documents folder may be missing on Mac Catalina or earlier. Intro macOS Catalina Extracting Exe Files with 7Zip Guide You Are Welcome!
The quick, short answer is, “By itself, the Mac can’t open this file.”
The longer, more positive answer requires a little background.
File Extensions
Both PC and Mac computers use three- or four-letter extensions on file names—the portion of the name after the period—to determine which application can open a file.
You may have noticed that files with extensions “.jpg” or “.jpeg” are opened by the Preview app on the Mac. Those files are images or photos.
Similarly, you may have noticed that files with extensions “.docx” or “.doc” are opened on the Mac by Microsoft Word or TextEdit. Those files are word processing documents.
What you may not have noticed is that Mac applications themselves have an “.app” extension. (See figure 1.)
Figure 1_Applications on the Mac have the file name extension “.app”
When you double click on a file with the “.app” extension on a Mac, the macOS® launches that application. In other words, opening a file with an “.app” extension is really launching that application; the macOS itself opens that file.
With this background, it is understandable that the Mac by itself can’t open an “.exe” file because the .exe extension means that the file is a Windows application. The Windows operating system is needed to open an “.exe” file.
Enter Parallels Desktop
When you have Parallels Desktop and a Windows virtual machine (VM) on your Mac, everything just works when you double click on an “.exe” file. It feels a little bit like magic.
Underneath, here is how the magic works: Parallels Desktop tells the Mac that it can open “.exe” files. So when you double click on that “.exe” file, the macOS® launches Parallels Desktop. This is just like when you double click on a “.jpg” file and the macOS launches Preview, or when you double click on a “.docx” file and the macOS launches Microsoft Word.
When Parallels Desktop is launched because you clicked on an “.exe” file, Parallels Desktop boots your Windows VM and tells Windows that you want this “.exe” file opened. Windows then launches the application for that “.exe” file.
While the quick, short answer to the question at the beginning of this blog post still is, “By itself, the Mac can’t open this file”…
The longer, more positive answer is, “This is a Windows file, so you need Windows to open it. The easiest way to get Windows on your Mac is to get Parallels Desktop and a Windows VM.”
Oh yeah, and if you have Boot Camp® on your Mac, you still won’t be able to double click on that “.exe” file and have it open. The short answer to “Why not?” is because the macOS and Boot Camp can’t talk to each other. The long answer will be the subject of a future blog post.
Try Parallels Desktop for free for 14 days!
Problem:
![Extract Exe File For Mac Extract Exe File For Mac](/uploads/1/1/9/8/119876427/342304325.jpg)
You need to extract an .msi file from an .exe installer.
Solution:
There are at least three ways of solving this problem, but none of them is universal. You might need to go through all of them to find the one that works for the EXE installer that you have.
CodeTwo strongly advises against extracting (and using) MSI files from the EXE installers of the CodeTwo software. Unless the product website allows such an operation (or unless you are instructed/allowed to do so by CodeTwo Support), use the .exe setup files.
The first method is based on the fact that most installers extract their .msi files to the temporary files folder during the installation process. To extract an MSI file from an EXE installer, you need to:
- Launch your .exe file.
- When you see the first prompt (e.g. a question about whether you want to continue installation, accept a license agreement, etc.), do not click anything in this window and do not close it.
- Open Windows Explorer, type %temp% in the address bar and press Enter.
- Sort the files in the folder by the modification date. The newest file on the list should be the .msi file you are looking for.
- Copy the MSI file to a safe location before you close the installer prompt window (see step 2). Be aware that if you close the installer window, the MSI file will be immediately deleted from the temporary files folder.
The second method uses a free third-party tool called 7-Zip to browse the content of the .exe installer file. Follow the steps below.
- Download 7-Zip from this page and install it.
- Right-click on the .exe file (from which you want to extract an .msi file) and from the shortcut menu choose 7-Zip > Open Archive.
- Do not extract any files yet. Instead, browse and look for the folder MSI within the contents. It might take some time to find this folder because it is not always located directly in the root directory (its location may vary depending on the installer).
- When you locate the MSI folder, you will notice that it most likely does not contain any .msi files, but a file or files with no extensions and rather cryptic names such as 132. Despite these misleading names, these are actually the MSI files you are looking for.
- Drag and drop these files to any desired folder or select them and extract them with 7-Zip. Close 7-Zip after that.
- Change the names of the extracted files so that they include the .msi extension.
- If there are two files, the larger one is the 64-bit installer, and the smaller one is the 32-bit version. Use the one you need.
![Mac Mac](/uploads/1/1/9/8/119876427/940364860.jpg)
The third method works with InstallShield based projects. To get the MSI file from your EXE installer, you need to:
Extract File Download
- Log on to a computer where the software (the installer of which you would like to access) is not installed. This is because this method forces the uninstalling process to trigger extraction of the .msi file. If you already have this software installed, this method will remove it, which might not be desired.
- Run Windows Command Prompt (cmd) (in Windows 10: open the Start menu, type cmd and press Enter) and go to the folder where your EXE file is located.
- Execute the command below: replace <file.exe> with the name of your .exe file and <target-folder> with the path to the folder where you want the .msi file to be extracted (for example C:Folder).
How To Extract A Downloaded File
As described in this thread, the switches for the command above do the following:
- /s /x - silently (/s) uninstalls (/x) the product from the system;
- /b - defines the target path for the .msi file;
- /v - passes desired arguments to the installer. In this case, the argument is /qn - it disables GUI and any prompts.