Net/XNA exe-packer

#1 This is a pretty cool utility. the concept I've already done myself (embedding an assembly as a resource) but the automation that cliff done is pretty nice.

cliff: any chance of a source code release?

-Jason

#2 It's actually more about good compression than about embedding an assembly. If you put all of your resources in the executable, you should be able to shrink the size of your production no less than 50%. Admittedly, disk space isn't the premium it used to be but what can I say? I'm old school. heh.

Probably won't be making a source release on this, don't know... I'm afraid I don't tend to be as source-code friendly as a lot of the folks these days. heh.

#3 Why dont you use the built-in compression api's? (they are new in .net 2.0) I guess if you want the compression to have certain characteristics, then a home-rolled one is okay too.

and i'd be interested in purchasing the source code, if it's reasonably low cost. if you are interested, you can email me at jasons aatt cwite ddoott org. I can promise that I wont be using the code for any product (commercial or otherwise) I am just interested in seeing how you implemented the launcher.

I've done a lot of research around obfuscation of .net assemblies, so this stuff is pretty much right up my alley.

ps: i did a quick look at your assembly, and it looks like you are embedding the assembly directly, not using a resource? i think that's interesting.

#4 It was actually because the compression rate of the built in compression libs was horrible.

I'd be happy to share the actual reflection code with you. It's actually pretty simple, here's an example that just does it by loading from file - you can easily adapt it for something else:

FileStream inFile = File.OpenRead("loadthis.exe");
byte[] inBytes = new byte[inFile.Length];
inFile.Read(inBytes, 0, (int)inFile.Length);
inFile.Close();
Assembly run = Assembly.Load(inBytes);
Object[] j = new Object[1];
j[0] = args;
run.EntryPoint.Invoke(null, j);

#5 Cliff, you dont have any email address posted, any way you could ping me over email? jasons aatt cwite ddoott org

thanks!

-Jason