WWPACK

File Format
Name	WWPACK
Ontology	Electronic File Formats Compression Executable compression WWPACK
Released	1993

WWPACK is an executable compression utility for DOS, developed by Piotr Warezak and Rafal Wierzbicki. Its main feature is compression of EXE files.

See also WWPack32, a related utility for Windows.

Discussion

Version 3.00+ can also compress arbitrary data files. Such files are compressed using the "PD" command, and decompressed with "UD".

Version 3.03+ can also compress COM files, converting them to EXE.

The registered version of WWPACK v3.03+ has a "U" command, to decompress (some) executable files compressed with WWPACK.

No WWPACK versions prior to 3.00 have been found. Based on the 3.00 documentation, there were five such releases: 2.00 (1993-11-24), 2.01, 2.02a, 2.03, and 2.04. Prior to v3.00, WWPACK only compressed the DOS "relocation table". It became a full-fledged executable compression utility as of v3.00.

Identification

EXE files compressed by WWPACK probably have ASCII "WWP" at offset 28.

Data files compressed by WWPACK begin with "WWP".

Software

• WWPACK
  • v3.00
  • v3.01: Best of Walnut Creek CD ROM (April 1995) → DISCS/SIMTEL/WWP301.ZIP
  • v3.02
  • v3.02a
  • v3.03
  • v3.04
  • v3.04a

Ed. note: The later versions of WWPACK will refuse to run unless the timestamp of the WWPACK.EXE file is exactly correct. For v3.04, it must be 1996-01-06 03:04:00am. For v3.04a, it must be 1996-01-21 03:04:00am.