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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

pnuts
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Senseful
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6 Answers6

25

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.

Senseful
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    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. – RolKau Nov 14 '10 at 20:59
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    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. – RolKau Dec 29 '14 at 23:02
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    It also works to set the directive variables on the `makecab` command line, e.g. `makecab /D DiskDirectoryTemplate=. /D InfFileName=NUL /D RptFileName=NUL` – opello Oct 16 '16 at 21:25
  • `makecab` has a different command line syntax, so it won't work as a drop-in replacement. [`cabarc` command line](https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb417343.aspx#com_line_usage), [`makecab` command line](https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb417343.aspx#syntax). – ivan_pozdeev May 30 '18 at 04:27
17

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
RolKau
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  • 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 – bob esponja Jan 06 '12 at 23:21
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    If you have [7-zip](http://www.7-zip.org) installed, you can extract them directly: `7z e WindowsXP-KB838079-SupportTools-ENU.exe support.cab` and then `7z e support.cab cabarc.exe` – RolKau Jan 08 '12 at 21:07
  • 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. – Mark Lakata Mar 13 '14 at 06:43
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    [Windows Server 2003 Support Tools](https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=15326) also contains cabarc.exe (version 5.2.3790.0) – Explorer09 May 14 '17 at 06:09
3

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%

Ethan S.
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3

You can download the CabSDK from here:

Download the Microsoft Cabinet SDK version 4.71.410.0

Nawaz
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2

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.

Nikhil Dabas
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0

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:*

user3006638
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Itrel
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