making .CAB files?

sykopath79

Senior member
Nov 2, 2000
458
0
0
I am trying to install a program that has its install files compressed in MS Cabinet (.CAB) format, and the installer keeps hanging on one of the CAB files saying it's corrupted. However, I can use Windows Explorer or WinZip and extract the files from the CAB just fine. Problem is, for the installer to work what I want to try is to take the extracted files and re-compress them into a fresh CAB file.

I've been told in the past that CAB files are little more than ZIP files with a different extension (a la id Software's pak/pk3 files), but when I make the archive with WinZip and rename it from .ZIP to .CAB it fails to recognize the file as a CAB when the installer runs.

How do I properly make a CAB file? Is there any nice little program that will do this?
 

BlueWeasel

Lifer
Jun 2, 2000
15,943
475
126
There are several compression utilities out there that can do .CAB files. The one I use is called Power Archiver and has support for most (if not all) of the different formats.

While Winzip is the "standard", it's very limited in the type of compression formats you can use.

I think PA is similar to Winzip in that you can use as shareware...