JAR hidden inside EXE?

Question

Minecraft, a Java game, is free this weekend. The Windows version downloads as an exe file. I was curious what the EXE file is doing and where it\'s unpacking and running th

Answer 1

after renaming Minecraft.exe to Minecraft.jar, I was able to open it and see the loader class files and such

Some EXE files are in fact self-extracting ZIP files. JAR files are in turn normal ZIP files with a special file structure. I bet that you was just opening it using a ZIP tool after renaming it. Note that some ZIP tools will auto-integrate in Windows explorer (or the other way round) so that it happens seemingly transparently.