Extract, Expand or Create CAB Files With the Command-Line
By Timothy Tibbettson 06/15/2023 |
Cabinet Files or CAB files are an archive and compression format from Microsoft not dissimilar to ZIP or RAR files, for example. The easiest way to open a CAB file is with an app like WinRar, PeaZip, or 7-Zip. If you don't have a third-party app, Windows includes three command-line tools to expand, make, or extract CAB files.
Those three tools are expand.exe, makecab.exe, and extrac32.exe. Here's how each one is used.
To use these tools, you'll want to open a command prompt or PowerShell and change directories to the folder with the CAB files. For two of the three apps, you can type in the app name, followed by a question mark to see your options. For example, expand.exe /?. Extrac32 is a little different and explained below.
1: Expand
Expand is the file expansion utility that's perfect for extracting all the files in a CAB. You can also rename, display, and more.
2: Extrac32
Extrac32 is the CAB extraction utility that you can use to only extract a single file from a CAB. Note that the ? does not work here. Instead, you'll need to type in extrac32 |more.
3: Makecab
Makecab is the lossless data compression tool. With makecab, you can compress files into a CAB. There are a few options, so once again, remember to use /? to see the list.
There you have it. As you can see, it's nice to have as a backup and to geek out, but at the end of the day, we prefer to use WinRar, PeaZip, or 7-Zip. While WinRar isn't free, it's been our preferred compression app for years.
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Those three tools are expand.exe, makecab.exe, and extrac32.exe. Here's how each one is used.
To use these tools, you'll want to open a command prompt or PowerShell and change directories to the folder with the CAB files. For two of the three apps, you can type in the app name, followed by a question mark to see your options. For example, expand.exe /?. Extrac32 is a little different and explained below.
1: Expand
Expand is the file expansion utility that's perfect for extracting all the files in a CAB. You can also rename, display, and more.
2: Extrac32
Extrac32 is the CAB extraction utility that you can use to only extract a single file from a CAB. Note that the ? does not work here. Instead, you'll need to type in extrac32 |more.
3: Makecab
Makecab is the lossless data compression tool. With makecab, you can compress files into a CAB. There are a few options, so once again, remember to use /? to see the list.
There you have it. As you can see, it's nice to have as a backup and to geek out, but at the end of the day, we prefer to use WinRar, PeaZip, or 7-Zip. While WinRar isn't free, it's been our preferred compression app for years.
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