Fastest Way To Extract Cab Files
Windows 95\98\98se
Here's my most popular bat
file - received over 1500 requests when I made it available at my old
computing site and Themestream. And it's not surprising, since there is no faster
- easier way to extract a cab file in Windows 95 or 98.
In this demo, it's assumed that
yourcab files are in D:\Win98se - make sure to substitute with your own
actual path and the name of your own Windows cd if different from in
the example.
Ok, here's what to do, step by step.
1. Open up a new Notepad
document or any other text editor and copy and paste these commands into
it. Save the file as
CabX.BAT in your C:\Windows directory.
@echo off
md
c:\windows\desktop\WinFiles
if "%1"=="" goto error
CLS
c:
cd
c:\windows\desktop\WinFiles
for %%i in (D:\Win98se\*.CAB) do
extract %%i %1
ECHO.
IF EXIST %1 ECHO %1 successfully extracted.
IF NOT
EXIST %1 ECHO %1 not found
goto end
:error
echo.
echo
Syntax: CabX file-to-extract
echo Example: CabX
Control.exe
echo.
:end
2.Now create a shortcut to
cabx.bat by right dragging it from your Windows folder to your Desktop and
choosing "New Shortcut Here" from the context menu that pops
up.
3. Right click your new desktop
shortcut and go to Properties.
Click the Program
tab.
Enter a space and a ? mark at the
end of the command line ei:
C:\WINDOWS\CABX.BAT
?
Click Apply and then click Change
Icon to choose a more friendly icon.
Finally, rename the shortcut to
CabExtract or whatever you prefer.
You now have a desktop shortcut that
will almost instantly extract any cab file from your Windows Cd by just entering
the name. The file will be extracted to a desktop folder named
WinFiles.
Test it out.
Click the shortcut
and enter explorer.exe and click ok.
Within seconds, you should have
explorer.exe extracted to the newly created WinFIles
folder.
Another benefit of this method is
that you can see where any cab file is located. You don't have to go looking for
it.
Therefore it searches, finds and
extracts all in one shot.
You can also enter
wildcards and partial names if you're not sure of the name of a file you need.
For example, say the file you need is comctld32.dll but you're not sure of
the spelling. Just enter something like:
com*.dll
and it will extract all
dll files that begin with com.
Or if you don't know the extension
either, simply enter:
com*.*
and ALL files that
begin with com regardless of extension, will be extracted.
You can also extract multiple
files.
Say, you want to back up all your dll files. Just
enter:
*.dll
and every single dll file will be
extracted.
Say you want to backup ALL your
Windows cab files. Just enter
*.*
and every single file from every
single cab file will be extracted.
You can also run the actual bat
file(not the shortcut) in native dos or at the Runbox by entering the name
of the bat file followed by the name of the file you want to
extract.
For example:
cabx
kernl32.dll
would extract
kern32.dll
Note that you don't have to enter
the extension of the bat file. cabx is all you have to enter, not
cabx.bat.