Self-Extracting (SFX) publications were originally introduced with previous versions of HTML Executable. They are called "Self-Extracting" because they extract the publication files to a temporary folder and then launch the default Web browser to view the unpacked HTML pages. They are useful because they are compact and do not require any runtime (not like HTML Viewer or IE-based publications). You can also use all HTML features you want as this is the user's default Web browser that is responsible of the display and navigation through the HTML pages of your website.How does it work?
Self-Extracting publications use the default web browser registered with HTML files in order to display the HTML pages. Any web browser (such as Microsoft Internet Explorer, Mozilla FireFox, Opera...) is enough as long as it is configured to open HTML pages (when you double-click on them in Windows Explorer for example).
When an end user runs your publication, the latter first creates a local copy of your website temporarily and then runs the web browser to display this website. The end user can view your website, navigate through HTML pages, etc... When he/she closes his/her browser, the publication will finally remove all temporary files it previously unpacked and close.
Self-Extracting publications are the smallest ones: only about 140kb of code is added to the compressed files in order to make a compiled publication. In return, they require a web browser in order to work correctly. Nowadays almost all computers have a web browser, but in case no web browser is found, the SFX publication will show an error message and exit.
They are useful if you want to create website archives for instance.
However do not forget that source files are extracted temporarily to a folder: any advanced user can then copy your HTML pages and reuse your files. If it does matter and you prefer to protect your files, then consider making HTML Viewer or Internet Explorer-based publications. Moreover new security restrictions introduced by Microsoft starting with Internet Explorer 7 and/or XP SP2 may display unwanted warnings when you have active objects in your HTML pages (like Flash, JavaScript objects...).
