Where can I get the cabarc utility?

Question

I'm trying to compile a program which uses cabarc.exe, but I don't have cabarc.exe. The problem is that the Microsoft Cabinet SDK is no longer available so I can't get it from there either.

Where can I get this file?

P.S. I'm looking for a download from a trusted source such as microsoft.com

Zygote

Answer 1

It appears that the cabarc.exe utility has been replaced with makecab.exe, which comes with Windows ^[source].

It should be located in:

• C:\WINDOWS\system32

The cabarc documentation can be found here.

The makecab documentation can be found here.

Zygote

Note that makecab produces a lot of extra artifacts that cabarc does not, such as a disk1/ directory, a setup.inf and a setup.rpt file. – Sidewalk

If you want to avoid getting the extra directories and setup files, you must add directives .Set DiskDirectoryTemplate=. .Set InfFileName=NUL .Set RptFileName=NUL in the .ddf file. – Sidewalk

It also works to set the directive variables on the makecab command line, e.g. makecab /D DiskDirectoryTemplate=. /D InfFileName=NUL /D RptFileName=NUL – Staceestacey

makecab has a different command line syntax, so it won't work as a drop-in replacement. cabarc command line, makecab command line. – Metropolitan

Answer 2

cabarc.exe is available as a part of the Windows XP Service Pack 2 Support Tools.

You can extract only this utility using commands like these (if you don't run XP):

WindowsXP-KB838079-SupportTools-ENU.exe /C /T:%TEMP%
extract /E %TEMP%\support.cab cabarc.exe

Sidewalk

On Windows 7 64bit I wasn't able to execute the extract portion, so after extracting support.cab I just "unzipped" it with WinRAR and found cabarc.exe – Youngling

If you have 7-zip installed, you can extract them directly: 7z e WindowsXP-KB838079-SupportTools-ENU.exe support.cab and then 7z e support.cab cabarc.exe – Sidewalk

If you use the GUI version of 7-zip, you can also open the *.exe by right clicking and selecting "Open Inside", then double click into the "support.cab" and voila. – Calcariferous

Windows Server 2003 Support Tools also contains cabarc.exe (version 5.2.3790.0) – Lukey

Answer 3

You can download the CabSDK from here:

Download the Microsoft Cabinet SDK version 4.71.410.0

Stipendiary

Answer 4

In Windows 7 (and possibly Vista) instead of extract you use expand. The syntax is slightly different, but see below for the one that worked for me. Replace %TEMP% in the second command with wherever you want the cabarc.exe file to end up.

WindowsXP-KB838079-SupportTools-ENU.exe /C /T:%TEMP%

expand %TEMP%\support.cab -F:cabarc.exe %TEMP%

Edgington

Answer 5

You can find cabarc.exe in the Internet Explorer Administration Kit.

Strangely though, IEAK 11 has cabarc.exe version 5.0.2147.1, while IEAK 10 has version 6.2.9200.16521.

Mayemayeda

Answer 6

For Windows 8 and Windows 8.1 use the Windows ADK

Download and install the Windows ADK from this website.

for the expand.exe command refer to http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/hh825253.aspx

The destination directory has to exist before executing the expand command. For example:

expand Dell-WinPE-Drivers-A02.CAB Dell-WinPE-Drivers-A02 -f:*

Catchup