Multi-volume Archive¶

Paquet Builder can generate a multi-volume archive: the output file is split into several smaller files (volumes).

Sharing single large archive files on the Internet and networks should be avoided as they can be corrupted, resulting in data loss. By creating a multi-volume archive, the single large archive is split into smaller and more manageable chunks.

Moreover, the multi-volume archive option lets you generate Self-Extracting archives larger than 4 GB (Windows EXE files are limited to 4 GB).

The disadvantage of this option is that this requires you to distribute several files in addition to the main Self-Extracting archive file (exe).

Volume size¶

Enter the desired volume size in bytes for each volume file.

You can change the unit to Gigabytes, Megabytes or kilobytes if needed.

Output filenames¶

Paquet Builder uses the same naming method as 7-Zip.

For instance, if you set the Package Filename to myarchive.exe, Paquet Builder will generate volumes with the following names:

• myarchive.exe
• myarchive.exe.001
• myarchive.exe.002
• myarchive.exe.003 ...

If the package type is Archive File, Paquet Builder creates a .7z multi-volume archive with the following names:

• myarchive.7z.001
• myarchive.7z.002
• myarchive.7z.003 ...

Extraction of a multi-volume archive¶

Warning: the Self-Extracting multi-volume package expects all volumes to be in the same folder as the EXE file when you start it. Otherwise, extraction will fail and the package will exit. The following error message will be displayed:

"An unexpected error occurred while unpacking file(s). Error code: -5"

which means that the compressed 7z archive is corrupted. In fact, if a volume is missing, the package will fail reuniting the original archive before unpacking it.

GSplit advanced file archiver¶

If you want more versatile options for splitting archive files, you can try our free file splitter software GSplit.

For more information about GSplit, click here