Open CAB file

The most commonly used .cab file type: Windows Cabinet Compressed Archive

What is cab file? Understanding and opening cab files

cab file icon Are you facing difficulties opening cab files on your computer, or wondering exactly what cab file is?
We've got the best software solutions for opening cab files effortlessly.

.cab file type #1: Windows Cabinet Compressed Archive

A cab file extension is commonly used for compressed archives found in Microsoft Windows operating system.

Further details

The cab file extension is used for native compressed archive format used in Microsoft Windows. Also known as Cabinet files.

CAB supports compression and digital signing, and is used by a variety of Microsoft installation engines, such as Setup API, Device Installer, AdvPack (for the installation of ActiveX components from Internet Explorer) and Windows Installer.

The cab file format works with three data compression methods:

  • DEFLATE, invented by Phil Katz, the author of the ZIP file format.
  • QUANTUM licensed from David Stafford, the author of the Quantum archiver.
  • LZX, invented by Jonathan Forbes and Tomi Poutanen, given to Microsoft when Jonathan joined the company. 

The cab files are also used in many installers (InstallShield and others), although it is mostly completely different format. Sometimes are used in computer games.

The cab archives can be created with command-line tool included in Windows called: makecab.exe

Open cab file with:

7-zip icon

7-zip

Popular open source file archiver with a high compression ratio

WinRAR icon

WinRAR

One of the oldest and most popular shareware file archiver and data compression utility

The Unarchiver icon

The Unarchiver

A decompression utility used to replace default unpacker software on Mac

Advanced CAB Repair icon

Advanced CAB Repair

A CAB archive recovery utility

PeaZip icon

PeaZip

A free open source archive utility

.cab file type #2: Installation File For Windows Mobile

Files with cab file extension could also be found as special installation packages in Windows CE devices. Similar to classic CAB format, but different.

Further details

The cab file format was also used as a standard installation mechanism in Windows CE powered devices, but it differs from the standard Windows archive.

The CAB file format is similar to classical Windows Cabinet compressed archive, but also contains special set of installation instructions in XML file bundled to the archive called _setup.xml.

Over the years the CAB format developed and many versions of it exist. Those usually work only on certain version of Windows CE. This situation was solved with Windows CE version 5.0 in which the CAB format used for app installations for standardized.

Open cab file with:

Windows Mobile icon

Windows Mobile

One of the previous mobile platforms from Microsoft

What file extension actually is?

Simply put, file extensions are the characters after the dot in the computer file name, so for example document-name.pdf has file extension „pdf“. This helps Windows to identify which program should be used to open the file.

We can help you to open your file

Our database contains a huge list of different file extensions, usually with detailed description and programs that can be used to open or otherwise work with that particular file type.

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