I, too, would like the choice of an official zip download of stable builds on the download page.

I understand the appeal of a plain archive, but I also think that NSIS is one of the least obtrusive and lowest-overhead (35kb) installers available.

FYI, 7-Zip can extract from NSIS installer executables as easily as any other archive format that it supports, so you can bypass the installer that way if you wish.

Since I already have WinRAR installed, and don't want to install two unpackers (and the command line version of 7zip does not seem to support LZMA unpacking), I would greatly appreciate if someone could help me out here. I'd really rather not have the installer put all that stuff in my registry only to have to clean it all out meticulously when a new release forces me to update.

Have you been able to unpack it yourself successfully?

I really think it's not too hard for the binary to be hosted as well, unless the makers are worried about security, which of course I understand (unless the installer really is fully extractable).

the installer only adds the uninstaller to the registry.
nothing more. If you don't like that, then use a different program 😀

I think DOSBox installer (NSIS, I think if I am not mistaken) is little intrusive to the operating system. Never had any problems with it.

The console (command line) interface of 7-Zip has the same capabilities as its GUI. Simply run 7z.exe with the "e" command to extract and give it the name of the archive; in this case the installer. For example: "7z e DOSBox0.72-win32-installer.exe"

ripsaw8080 wrote:

The console (command line) interface of 7-Zip has the same capabilities as its GUI.

Not quite true.

Command line version:

1> 7za.exe l DOSBox-0.72-win32-installer.exe
2
37-Zip (A) 4.57  Copyright (c) 1999-2007 Igor Pavlov  2007-12-06
4
5Error: DOSBox0.72-win32-installer.exe is not supported archive
6
7Errors: 1

readme.txt wrote:

Features of 7za.exe: - High compression ratio in new 7z format - Supported formats: - Packing / unpacking: 7z, ZIP, G […]
Show full quote

Features of 7za.exe:
- High compression ratio in new 7z format
- Supported formats:
- Packing / unpacking: 7z, ZIP, GZIP, BZIP2 and TAR
- Unpacking only: Z
- Highest compression ratio for ZIP and GZIP formats.
- Fast compression and decompression
- Strong AES-256 encryption in 7z and ZIP formats.

Full version (in command line mode):

1> 7z.exe l DOSBox0.72-win32-installer.exe
2
37-Zip 4.57  Copyright (c) 1999-2007 Igor Pavlov  2007-12-06
4
5Listing archive: DOSBox0.72-win32-installer.exe
6
7Method = LZMA:23
8Solid = +
9
10   Date      Time    Attr         Size   Compressed  Name
11------------------- ----- ------------ ------------  ------------------------
122007-08-26 20:33:22              46929      1224330  zmbv\README.txt
132007-08-26 20:33:22              18332               zmbv\COPYING.txt
142007-08-26 20:33:22                874               zmbv\THANKS.txt
152007-08-26 20:33:22              24551               zmbv\NEWS.txt
162007-08-26 20:33:22                243               zmbv\AUTHORS.txt
172007-08-26 20:33:22               3611               zmbv\INSTALL.txt
182007-08-26 20:14:42            3200000               zmbv\dosbox.exe
192007-08-26 20:06:44               7351               zmbv\dosbox.conf
202007-08-17 19:44:56             331776               zmbv\SDL.dll
212007-08-17 19:45:42              13312               zmbv\SDL_net.dll
222007-03-02 12:44:44              94208               zmbv\zmbv\zmbv.dll
232007-03-02 12:04:14               2103               zmbv\zmbv\zmbv.inf
242007-07-30 10:08:34                                  zmbv\zmbv\README.txt
25------------------- ----- ------------ ------------  ------------------------
26                               3743290      1224330  13 files, 0 folders

readme.txt wrote:

The main features of 7-Zip: […]
Show full quote

The main features of 7-Zip:

- High compression ratio in the new 7z format
- Supported formats:
- Packing / unpacking: 7z, ZIP, GZIP, BZIP2 and TAR
- Unpacking only: RAR, CAB, ISO, ARJ, LZH, CHM, MSI, WIM, Z, CPIO, RPM, DEB and NSIS
- Fast compression and decompression
- Self-extracting capability for 7z format
- Strong AES-256 encryption in 7z and ZIP formats
- Integration with Windows Shell
- Powerful File Manager
- Powerful command line version
- Localizations for 69 languages

I stand not corrected, as I never suggested using 7za.exe 😀

You can add basic installing features to autoextractable 7z files by downloading some sfx files and combining them with a text script.

What's the problem with NSIS guys? If it fails on your machines, is quite probable that some other packers fail too.

OP: If it bugs you, just install it, copy off the folder somewhere else, then uninstall it. It will run fine.

I'm not complaining, and in truth I have little right to be asking for anything, because I have never donated to support DosBox and yet I've used it to relive my childhood and play old games I never thought I'd be able to again.

In the end, I was just hoping there was a quick fix. Its not that I'm paranoid about tons of things getting installed where they shouldn't be; Its a clean installer for the most part. I just don't care for the start menu, desktop icon, registry entry, add/remove program entry...I can of course get rid of those after installing, but I figured it would be easier, since DosBox doesn't need any of those things to run, if I could just skip the work and find the latest version in a simple ZIP.

I'll just wait till I reformat my computer and I'll install 7zip instead of winrar and unpack the installer myself.

Thanks to the guys who tried to help!

Just try what valnar said, that should work quite nicely. You can copy the
dosbox executable where you want as long as you copy the dlls as well,
and maybe the dosbox.conf file for quicker configuration.