Deploying application question (C++)

Question

Hello!

Does someone know if there is a way to pack everything-application related into one (single) exe-file?

My product is fully written in C++, has a lot of external plugins (dll) and some external data packages. It should be accessible using the network and without installation (launch in one click).

Are there some tools to make something like virtual filesystem and unpack everything application-related to memory?

Or probably I have to somehow (manually) integrate all the dlls and the data? Is this possible?

Thank you

Answer 1

Try an .msi file, or ClickOnce deployment (assuming Windows, assuming at least VS 2005).

Edit: Based on a comment below, I don't know in general if you can do exactly what you are asking with an arbitary set of DLLs. You can include, say, Microsoft Foundation Classes statically rather than dynamically. But the distributor of a DLL may not want to allow complete incorporation into your code. Even if you could, you might be running against license agreements and the like.

Answer 2

Not sure if that's what you want but UPX is made to generate a single exe from an application made of several ones : http://upx.sourceforge.net/

However if you want a virtual folder system, maybe you just need to use PhysicsFS ? http://icculus.org/physfs/

Anyway your question is not really clear...