How to Decompress EXE file

Level of difficulty: Intermediate

Decompressing an executable file means unpacking the original executable code. Most compressed EXE files decompress directly to the memory and do not usually need free file system space to commence. But there are a few decompressor stubs that are known to encode an uncompressed EXE file to the file system to start it.

Materials Needed:
- MPRESS software
- Microsoft Windows Operating System. EXE file to be decompressed
Step 1
To be able to decompress an EXE file, you should use software like MPRESS. This application is capable of compressing and decompressing PE32, .NET, PE32+ and MAC-DARWIN executables. MPRESS makes use of in-place decompression technique that enables users to decompress EXE files without memory overhead or any other drawbacks. It decompresses files up to ~210 MB/sec depending on the speed and processor of the machine.
Step 2
You can download MPRESS version 2.12 at http://www.matcode.com/mpress.212.zip and MPRESS version 1.27 at http://www.matcode.com/mpress.127.zip. Click the link or right-click on the link and then choose 'Save as.' Navigate your folders where you wanted the ZIP file to be installed.
Step 3
Once you have downloaded the ZIP file containing the MPRESS application, open it using WinZip. You can right-click on the mpress.212.zip file and click 'Open with' to choose the program that you want to use to open the file or simply double click on it if you already have WinZip.
Step 4
And if you do not have WinZip installed on your computer or any other applications that are capable of opening ZIP files, download and install WinZip and extract the ZIP containing the MPRESS program.
Step 5
Once you have extracted the content of the mpress.212.zip file, you can double click on it or simply go to DOS window by clicking the 'Start' button, then the 'All Programs' item and then click 'Run.' Then type on the field 'cmd' to access the command prompt.
Step 6
At the command prompt, change the directory and proceed to the directory where your EXE file that needs to be decompressed is located. Then type 'mpress.exe .' MPRESS will then be launch and will start decompressing your executable file.