MS Cabinet files under MS-DOS \ VOGONS

MS Cabinet files under MS-DOS

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First post, by Neelix

Posted on 2022-10-06, 15:41

Neelix Offline

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Hi,

I would to extract a MS Cabinet file at system startup from the floppy to a virtual drive using EXTRACT.EXE.

I found Winlight, a DOS 7.1 and Windows 3.11 based system, designed to
help fixing a broken DOS system on old machines.

I decided to improve it, adding some commands.

Then, I need to compress the system into a Cabinet file, like it was on the original disk.

I found cabsdk, containing CABARC.EXE that runs under Windows 98 and IEXPRESS.EXE, running under Windows 2000, but,
my CAB file is not extracting, from the floppy.

I added the command ECHO ON to autoexec.bat and ran the system Step by Step. No error occurs, but the only file extracted is
DOSIDLE.EXE. It's size is 0 bytes.

But, running a MS-DOS 6.22 system on a Virtualbox VM, the Cabinet is extracted without problem.

Could some one help me, please ?

Reply 1 of 9, by Azarien

Posted on 2022-10-08, 08:20

Azarien Offline

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There was more than one .cab file format used by Microsoft – maybe the tools you used don't match.

Reply 2 of 9, by Neelix

Posted on 2022-10-12, 10:13

Neelix Offline

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Hi,

I fixed my problem using version 1.00.0601.2 that comes with IEAK 5 with default LZX compression.
But, increasing the compression level, it doesn't work anymore.

It could be that the EXTRACT.EXE command has not enough memory.

So, I manage to use HIMEM AND EMM386, but, I must compress some drivers files to increase my floppy disk space.
But the CONFIG.SYS is loading the drivers before AUTOEXEC loads the EXTRACT command.

Is there a way to extract some files before loading the drivers in CONFIG.SYS ?

Reply 3 of 9, by Neelix

Posted on 2022-10-15, 08:19

Neelix Offline

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Hi Guys,

This morning, working, I found out that the error out from the EXTRACT command was redirected to nul. Suppressing the '>nul ' from
the command line, I got this error:
ERROR: Out of memory while processing cabinet file Winlight.cab

However, the cabinet is well extracted when booting and extracting it from the hard drive. Why that ?

I wonder if someone could explain that mystery.

Reply 4 of 9, by Azarien

Posted on 2022-10-15, 20:06

Azarien Offline

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Neelix wrote on 2022-10-12, 10:13:
So, I manage to use HIMEM AND EMM386, but, I must compress some drivers files to increase my floppy disk space.

You mean, even after compressing everything you don't need in your config.sys, you still cannot fit on a floppy?

In such case consider switching to a bootable CD. It emulates a floppy and as such is still limited in size, but that floppy image may load a CD-ROM driver and MSCDEX, so you get access to normal CD filesystem which should be big enough 😀

Reply 5 of 9, by Neelix

Posted on 2022-10-16, 08:27

Neelix Offline

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Yes, it should do the tricks. But, the goal were to build only a floppy, since some machines doesn't support CDROM.

Reply 6 of 9, by lolo799

Posted on 2022-10-16, 11:24

lolo799 Offline

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Why not use two floppies and a split archive?

PCMCIA Sound, Storage & Graphics

Reply 7 of 9, by Neelix

Posted on 2022-10-16, 12:02

Neelix Offline

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Yes, I thought about this. But it's not only a matter of medium type. It's also a challenge... Searching for solutions and go further, growing my knowledge.
If possible, of course !