A great deal of files come packed in 7z archives but unfortunately, the latest version of VitaShell doesn’t support extracting these archives. Fortunately for us, there is a version of VitaShell that does!
What is 7zShell? Why does it exist?
Trying to open a 7z archive in VitaShell 1.76…
Back in August 2016, VitaShell 0.8 was released for HENkaku enabled devices and while it brought about many features (such as customization) and bug fixes, 7z and RAR support were dropped in favour of support for ZIP files larger than 2GB. While RAR support was re-added in a later release of VitaShell, 7z support didn’t so 7zShell came into existence.
The first version of VitaShell for HENkaku-enabled devices was version 0.7 and that, indeed, had support for 7z archives! Now, I have decided (yes, it is my modification) to share with you all the small mod I did to the VitaShell files that I decided to call 7zShell.
This is what the modification includes:
- Stock (unmodified) VitaShell 0.7 so you have support for 7z archives. This means that you can easily extract ROMs from 7z archives directly on your Vita without using ePSP!
- The name ‘VitaShell’ was changed to ‘7zShell’ so that you don’t have 2 ‘VitaShell’ bubbles.
- The installation directory (in ux0:/app) was changed to ‘7ZVTSHELL’ from ‘VITASHELL’ to avoid installation conflicts.
- The LiveArea screen was updated to reflect the name change.
As you can see, this is a simple modification (to the PARAM.sfo and template.xml files) and I don’t claim any credit for the program whatsoever. All credit goes to TheFlow for VitaShell!
7zShell (VitaShell 0.7) opens it just fine! 
I have simply shared this little modification because I personally find it useful since thanks to DownloadEnabler (by TheFlow), you can download all types of files from the Vita’s browser and some of them are in 7z format. This little mod saves me time as I don’t have to use PSP Filer in Adrenaline (also by TheFlow) to extract 7z archives!
Conclusion
As expected, this modification comes with NO support whatsoever so don’t go bugging TheFlow (or me for that matter) for support because there won’t be any. This is simply a repackaging job with a small modification in some files to avoid confusion and make it easy to install. Obviously, it requires unsafe permissions so get it from a safe source such as the link below!
Download link: http://www6.zippyshare.com/v/epeQkIBB/file.html
VitaShell’s source code: https://github.com/TheOfficialFloW/VitaShell
The post 7zShell modification (VitaShell) released – Extract 7z files directly on your Vita without using ePSP appeared first on Wololo.net.