---
title: "ffxivinstaller.exe"
---

This is not a standard InstallShield installer (at least to my knowledge) but seems to a self-extracting executable and then some form of InstallShield executable.

If you only care about the .cab files (which can then be read with your usual installshield libraries/tools like unshield) then they are contained right in the executable, uncompressed.

To find them, simply find the needle string "Disk1\\{FileName}" where FileName is the cab filename. They are as follows:

* data1.cab
* data1.hdr (to my knowledge, this is some kind of "file index" for installshield installers)
* data2.cab

They are simply put right next to each other in the executable, so if you follow that order you'll find each of them quite easily.

## Alternative Implementations

* [libxiv (C++)](https://git.sr.ht/~redstrate/libxiv/tree/main/src/installextract.cpp)