GUiPeX
A UPX Front-End for Win32
v1.4  11/10/2002
(view history to see what's new)
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Introduction
GUiPeX, pronounced "GWEE-pex" (see screenshot), is a name taken from GUI (Graphical User Interface) and UPX.  UPX, a free DOS command-line tool, is a portable, extendable, high-performance executable packer for several different executable formats.  It achieves an excellent compression ratio and offers very fast decompression.  Your executables suffer no memory overhead or other drawbacks.  Since UPX is a DOS tool, I thought I would write a simple GUI front-end for use on Win32 systems.  The primary use for GUiPeX is for software developers to compress their programs before distributing them to their customers or posting them on the internet.  This makes the final file sizes much smaller (up to 75% smaller) for faster file transfers.  However, the average user can use the tool to compress files on their systems to increase free disk space.

GUiPeX is a winner of the WinTotal Award - 6/6 points!

(site is in German)

Installation
 To install GUiPeX, simply click here to download the setup file (522KB).  After downloading, launch the setup file and follow the simple on-screen instructions.  Should you wish to remove GUiPeX from your system, use the "Uninstall" menu option from GUiPeX's Start Menu program group, or use the "Add/Remove Programs" Control Panel applet.

NOTE (07/03/2006):  Setup above has been updated to include all languages and fix a problem on some machines where the selected language was not persistant between instances of GUiPeX.  If you have this problem, simply redownload the setup and install it on top of your existing GUiPeX installation.

Language Packs
The above setup has been updated to contain all available language packs (English, German, Spanish, Czech, and Slovak).  Click below to download additional language packs submitted by users of GUiPeX if your copy does not contain the language:

Czech Language Pack (thanks Vladimír Šupšak vladosup@quick.cz)
German Language Pack (thanks Dirk Viehoever viehoever-d@gmx.de)
Slovak Language Pack (thanks IvUr om7ur@pobox.sk)
Spanish Language Pack (thanks Ricardo Gatica ricardogatica@lycos.es)
Arabic Language Pack (thanks Abd-Essalam Ghalib Bin Ali Jaber abd_jaber2002@yahoo.com)

To install the language, simply extract the downloaded zip file into your GUiPeX folder using WinZip or other zip program.  Be sure the INI file extracted from the zip file gets placed in the GUiPeX\Languages subfolder.

Usage
The main screen is separated into three "sections":  the "Files to Compress/Decompress" listbox, the "UPX Commands" to run, and the "UPX Output" to show the output of the DOS UPX tool for each file.  Using the program is simple:  with Windows Explorer, drag the files to compress into the "Files to Compress" listbox, select the UPX Commands, then press the "Run" button.  Notice the total file size before and after running the UPX commands, which will automatically be updated with ANY changes to the list of files.  The small graphics to the left of the filenames after pressing the Run button provide some information:

• A blue arrow next to the filename means the UPX commands are currently running on this file
• A green check means the file was successfully compressed/decompressed/tested
• A red 'X' or warning symbol means UPX did not successfully compress/decompress/test the file.  Double-clicking the filename will quickly show you the UPX output for this file in the "UPX Output" box.

Once completed, GUiPeX will output the results from UPX into one output in the "UPX Output" box.  If you need to remove some files from the list, press and hold the CTRL or SHIFT key while selecting multiple files with your mouse, right-click for the menu option and then select "Delete Entry" or press the DEL keyboard key.

Note1: dropping files into the listbox does not copy the files anywhere.  GUiPeX simply just stores the path to each file, and will run the UPX commands on the files from their original places.

Note2: you can also drag/drop folders from Windows Explorer onto GUiPeX.  If enabled (see Options below, Files to Compress) GUiPeX will scan the folder and all subfolders for the files.

If you are going to run the same UPX commands on the same list of files in the future (such as software updates, etc.), you can save the "project" by clicking on the Save button and specifying the project name.  The project will be stored in the GUiPeX\Projects subfolder in an INI-formatted file and will be available in the "Open" menu option or tool bar button.  To delete this project, press the "Delete" toolbar button.

Command Line Parameters
The only parameter GUiPeX supports is the project name to automatically load and run (surrounded by double-quotes).  For example, if you have a project named "My Apps", the sample command would be:

C:\Program Files\GUiPeX\GUiPeX.exe "My Apps"

GUiPeX will then load the project, run it, and then (if specified in Options below) save the UPX output to a log and close.  The log file will be stored in the GUiPeX\Projects folder.  This is useful for automatic software builds and you want to compress your software files without any user intervention.

NOTE:  the current version has a small bug that prevents GUiPeX from shutting down when running a project from the command line on XP systems.  To get around this problem, do the following:

1. Launch RegEdit (from Start Menu, Run, type in RegEdit, and click OK)
2. In Registry Editor, navigate to "HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\GUiPeX\AppOptions"
3. On the right-hand side, right-click, select New --> DWORD value
4. Name the new value to "ControlStyle" (without quotes or spaces, leave the default value to 0)
5. Exit RegEdit

GUiPeX should now shut down automatically after running a project from the command-line.

Options
These are the options available in the GUiPeX Options dialog (accessible via the Tools | Options menu):

• UPX Location
  By default, GUiPeX will temporarily extract UPX v1.21w to run the UPX commands.  However, you can override this by entering the full path to your copy of UPX.EXE.  If providing the path to UPX.EXE on your system, the version info of the selected file will be shown on-screen.
  
  
• My UPX Defaults
  When creating new projects, GUiPeX will load the command settings you stored on this tab.  Your settings can also be loaded by clicking on the "Load My Defaults" button on the UPX Commands section.  For a description of the commands, hold your mouse over the command option to display the hint.  To retrieve the DOS UPX defaults, click on the "Load UPX Defaults" button.
  
  
• Files to Compress
  By default, GUiPeX will only accept files drag/dropped onto the program if the extension is either DLL, EXE or OCX.  To add support for additional file types, click the Add button and enter the file extension (without the period).  For example, to add support for Borland Package Libraries, click Add and enter BPL.  GUiPeX will then accept BPL files.  This is useful when dragging an entire folder onto the program without having to deselect the files you can't compress (such as DOCs or TXTs).
  
  
• Program Options
  Two Controls/Menu styles are available: Normal or Flat.  This will redraw most of the application controls using either a flat (like Windows XP) or normal appearance.  I say "most" because not all controls are currently supported such as a track bar (the UPX compression level) or the tab sheets.
  
  The "Hide popup hints" option, if checked, will prevent any hints from displaying when a mouse is positioned over the controls.  This is useful if you know the application well enough to not need the informative hints that most of the controls provide.
  
  The "Shut down GUiPeX after completing loaded project from command line" option is just that: this will instruct GUiPeX to close after completing a loaded project from the command line (see Command Line Parameters above).  This will also write the UPX output result to a log file so you can know the results of the UPX commands.
  
  NOTE:  the current version has a small bug that prevents GUiPeX from shutting down when running a project from the command line on XP systems.  To get around this problem, do the following:
  
  1. Launch RegEdit (from Start Menu, Run, type in RegEdit, and click OK)
  2. In Registry Editor, navigate to "HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\GUiPeX\AppOptions"
  3. On the right-hand side, right-click, select New --> DWORD value
  4. Name the new value to "ControlStyle" (without quotes or spaces, leave the default value to 0)
  5. Exit RegEdit
  
  GUiPeX should now shut down automatically after running a project from the command-line.
  
  
• UPX Threads
  If this options is enabled, GUiPeX will lauch UPX commands using threads, but only 10 threads will run at a time to reduce the risk of running out of system resources.  You can also specify the priority of the UPX threads with regards to other running applications: Normal, Higher, or Highest.  Be careful if using the Highest setting since this can make other applications unresponsive while the UPX threads are running.  
  
  If this option is unchecked, GUiPeX will run the UPX commands on one file at a time in the list.

Technical Support/Updates
Bug reports, comments, questions or suggestions for improvements regarding GUiPeX can be emailed to me.  For the latest update to this application, check GUiPeX's home page.

If you are having problems with the DOS UPX tool or want to check for the latest version of UPX, visit the UPX website.

GUiPeX Source Code
I've decided to release the Delphi 5/6 source code to GUiPeX, which contains all the necessary freeware libraries.  Note that you don't need to install any of the provided components as I dynamically create them during runtime and free them when done.  Please be aware that you are not permitted to use this source code for a commercial application.

History

v1.4 5/13/2003
- Added Czech Language Pack (thanks Vladimír Šupšak vladosup@quick.cz)

v1.4 11/10/2002
- Now internally uses UPX v1.24 to compress/decompress files
- Added multi-language support (German and English for now).  Please email me to send in your translations!
- Minor UI updates (Theme Manager, XPMenu)

v1.3 6/9/2002
- Added support for UPX v1.21
- Added "Add files" popup menu option
- Minor UI updates (Theme Manager, XPMenu)
- Minor misc bug fixes
- New home page http://www.blueorbsoft.com/guipex/

v1.2  3/11/2002
- Improved Windows XP support

Disclaimer
The author of this software is not responsible for any damages to your PC as a result of misuse.  Use at your own risk.  Copyright © 2002-2006 Blue Orb Software.

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