CAB Explorer

CAB Explorer is a handy tool that helps you make sure your application gets to the end user without any hiccups. It's got powerful archiving features that prevent data loss and corruption, which is super important. This lightweight, portable utility lets you easily extract CAB archives and even create your own.

What are CAB Files?

A cabinet file, or CAB for short, is a type of archive that uses lossless data compression. It can also hold embedded digital certificates. These are sometimes necessary to keep the integrity of the archive intact.

How Are CAB Files Used?

You’ll often find CAB files in self-extracting programs like installers and setups. For example, MSI installers usually rely on one or more CAB files during their installation process.

Extracting CAB Files

If you need to decompress a cabinet file, Windows' File Explorer can do it pretty easily. There are also several other third-party tools that handle archives just as well. But if you're looking to create a CAB file from scratch? That's where CAB Explorer really shines.

Easy-to-Use Interface

This program is super user-friendly! It's portable, meaning you don’t have to go through an annoying installation process. You can pop it onto a USB drive and take it wherever you go without messing with your computer's registry.

Extracting Made Simple

To extract the contents of a CAB file, just launch the app, import your archive, and you're almost done! Decompression is just one click away!

Creating Your Own CAB Files

If you want to create a new cabinet file from scratch, it's easy! Just find the 'Compress' command in the 'Actions' menu and start it up. Select the file you want in your archive and save it quickly.

A Little Frustration

But here’s something we found annoying: when creating a new CAB file, you can only add one file at a time! We tried every trick in the book to get multiple files in there but no luck.

The Bottom Line

If CAB Explorer could manage multiple files in one archive, it would be fantastic for handling cabinet files. Unfortunately, that's not an option right now. But if all you need is to extract CAB archives or if this fits what you're looking for, it's definitely worth giving it a shot!