What Does Win 32 Cabinet Extractor Mean?
In early distributions of Windows, the large size of the program made distribution across diskette and compact disks expensive. To keep the files small, Microsoft used a compression mechanism they called "cabinets," or .cab files, which require software to decompress.
Other People Are Reading
-
What's in the Cabinet?
-
Windows cabinet files contain the files that install the program. Because they are compressed files, you cannot use the contents of those files without extracting them from the cabinet file. Think of it like a locked file cabinet that you have to unlock before removing the contents. Before Windows ME, .cab files were found only on the installation disk. Since then, they are copied to your computer for easier access.
What's the Extractor?
-
Since the contents of the cabinet files are normally inaccessible, the extractor is a program used to remove those files so you can use them. It's like having a key to a locked file cabinet that lets you get at the things inside.
-
Why Do I Need One?
-
Any time you are using your computer, there is a risk that one of the Windows files may be damaged, either by a virus or even a hardware failure. The cabinet extractor allows you to recover a single file to replace the damaged one without having to reinstall Windows from scratch.
-
References
Resources
- Photo Credit file image by Jan Will from Fotolia.com
