title: What is a good free utility to create a self-extracting executable with an embedded file version?
body: <p>According to the answers to <a href="https://stackoverflow.com/questions/151250/how-do-i-embed-a-file-version-in-an-msi-file-with-visual-studio">this</a> question, I cannot embed a file version in my .msi file. </p>
  
  <p>The installer that I give the client needs to have a file version. </p>
  
  <p>So, what I want to do is create a self-extracting executable containing the msi file and the setup.exe generated by Visual Studio, and put the file version on this self-extracting executable instead.</p>
  
  <p>Therefore, I need a utility to create self-extracting executables which supports embedding a file version in its output. It also needs to support automatically running a file after extraction, so I can start the real installer automatically. It would be nice if it was scriptable.</p>
  
  <p>All I could find was <a href="http://www.gdgsoft.com/pb/customize-package.aspx" rel="nofollow noreferrer">this</a>, which looks great, but I would much prefer a free alternative.</p>
  
  <p>Does anyone have any suggestions?</p>
  
  <p><strong>Edit:</strong> To clarify, I'm not really looking to create an installer - I already have a VS setup project. I just want a self-extractor (like WinZip can create). So, the user mouses over Setup-Blorgbeard2008.exe, sees "Version: 1.0.0.0". User doubleclicks it, it silently extracts setup.exe and setup.msi to a temp folder, then runs setup.exe. User then sees normal installer screen and proceeds as normal.</p>
  
  <p><strong>Another Edit:</strong> Yay, I don't need a self-extractor anymore, since my other question has now been answered. That makes this whole question pretty much irrelevant. It <em>would</em> still be nice to be able to distribute only one file, rather than setup.exe and setup.msi.</p>