China DOS Union

Extract.exe is the pure DOS file extraction utility from Windows 9X. The syntax for extract is as follows:

extract /a /l

　　·cabinet is the name of the cab file

　　·filename is the name of the file you want to extract from the cab

　　·destination is the location where the extracted file will be placed

　　· is only used as a marker in the explanation, it is not part of the "command". Each parameter must be separated by spaces.

　　·If you have experience using DOS, you can use the /? parameter (extract /?) to look at the extract command help.

An actual example will be easier to understand. Suppose I want to extract Shell.dll to C:\Windows\System (Shell.dll is in precopy1.cab). Suppose my CD-ROM drive letter is F; just change it to your own CD-ROM drive letter. (That means pointing to the path where your cab files are located.)

　　extract /a /e /l c:\windows\system f:\win98\precopy1.cab shell.dll

　　extract can also accept the wildcard character * .

　　For example, if I want to extract all txt files in win95_02.cab to c:\windows, then it is:

　　extract /a /e /l c:\windows f:\win95\win95_02.cab *.txt

　　If you want to see the contents of a certain cab file:

　　extract /d

　　If you want to view the contents of cab files continuously:

　　extract /a /d

If you want the display to pause after one screen when continuously viewing cab files, you can add the MORE command:

extract /a /d

　　cab files have a "chained" property. After finishing one, it will continue looking for the second one linked to it, and keep chaining onward. For example, after finishing Base4.cab it will continue with Base5.... After finishing Win98_21.cab, it will continue searching Win98_22.cab, Win98_23.cab.... and so on, by analogy.

　　For example, if I want to display the contents from win98_21.cab to win98_76.cab, then it is

　　extract /a /d win98_21.cab

　　After extract finishes reading win98_21.cab, it will continue reading the next one, until the last one.

　　Searching for files

　　extract /a /d

　　For example, if I want to find out which cab contains vmm32.vxd, then it is:

　　extract /a /d f:\win98\win98_22.cab vmm32.vxd

　　(Because win98_22.cab is under the win98 directory, and because win98_22.cab is the first cab file for ordinary windows files. As mentioned before, cab files are chained: as long as you start with the first one, extract will continue with the second, third, and so on, so here I have it start searching from the file win98_21.cab.)

　　extract will start searching from win98_22 and keep going until the last cab file. However, if there are too many cab files to search, the screen may scroll too fast, and sometimes it is not easy to see which cab file the file is in.

Using the CABARC command is pretty good too, unfortunately it can only be used in a DOS window.