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Is there a method to unzip .exe file on a Mac OS X without downloading and/or buying applications that do this for you?

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This question is poorly framed. Any file is just a sequence of bits and file extensions can be changed trivially. On the other hand, it could be asking an equally trivial question that could be answered either no or yes. (No - a general tool can't cope with all .exe and yes - you could embed VMWare into a jar with the exe embedded or just wrap the .exe to call the Windows OS that normally runs the .exe). As it stands, we can't guess what question is being asked. – bmike♦ Nov 22 '12 at 13:44

closed as not a real question by bmike♦ Nov 22 '12 at 13:44

It's difficult to tell what is being asked here. This question is ambiguous, vague, incomplete, overly broad, or rhetorical and cannot be reasonably answered in its current form. For help clarifying this question so that it can be reopened, see the FAQ.

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The files cannot be "converted," but you can extract them; if the .exe was originally written in Java, this SO question should help. Basically, it explains that some Java to EXE packagers/compilers make them difficult to extract for various reasons.

Note that extracting the .jar files may or may not be legal, depending on the license included with the application.

JAR files are Java ARchives that contain a Java program's resources and class files, and EXE files are compiled executables. Already-compiled EXE files cannot be extracted of their original .jar files, but if they were only wrapped, you should check out JSmooth.

If you merely want to run the EXE file on your Air, WineBottler is an excellent Wine wrapper that allows you to run Windows EXE files, or you can install Windows on a virtual machine or using Boot Camp.

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