Merge files so both launch

Question

Would it be possible on any platform to merge two files into a single file so that when opened, both files would launch? For example, take a video called cat.avi, and a picture called hello.jpg, and merge them into a file called both.something. When both.something is opened, a video player launches and plays cat.avi and a picture viewer opens displaying hello.jpg.

Answer 1

Yes, it would be possible to design a file format to wrap documents into a single file and it would be possible to design an application that would read the file and launch the documents within it in their relevant applications. There are no commonly accepted file formats to do this so any custom solution would limit the portability and usefulness of the original documents. There are other more standard and flexible ways (such as scripting) that can launch multiple documents.

Answer 2

You could use a batch file, but then you'd have to distribute three files.

@Echo Off
CD /D %~dp0
Start cat.avi
Start hello.jpg