[Registered55]

Hello, I’ve been using Mini Compressor for a while and overall the compression works great, but I’m having trouble with the self‑extracting (SFX) part.

When I create smaller archives (around 3GB or below), the SFX EXE works normally. It shows the UAC shield icon, Windows recognises it as a valid executable, and it runs without any issues.

However, once the output archive gets larger (somewhere above ~4GB — I don’t know the exact cutoff), the generated SFX becomes invalid. Windows refuses to run it and shows the message “this app can’t run on your PC”. The file also loses the UAC icon, as if the PE header or overlay is broken. The compression itself completes fine — only the final SFX EXE becomes unusable at larger sizes.

I’m not sure if this is a size limitation, a stub limitation, or something in the way the SFX is built.

My second question is more important:
Do I actually need the SFX at all?

If there is a way to extract the ARC file directly — even if it uses Mini Compressor’s extended/“masked” compression chain (LOLZ, SREP64, XTool, Dispack, etc.) — I would prefer that. I don’t mind using command‑line tools or external extractors. I just need a reliable way to unpack the archive without relying on the SFX stub, especially since the stub seems to break at larger sizes.

So my questions are:

Has anyone else seen the SFX EXE become invalid once the archive exceeds a certain size?

Is there a known size limit or PE overlay limit for the Mini Compressor SFX stub?

Is there any tool or method to extract Mini Compressor ARC files directly, without needing the SFX EXE?

If not, is there a patched version of FreeArc or another extractor that supports the extended codecs Mini Compressor uses?

Any help or insight would be appreciated.