msexpand

msexpand [OPTIONS] <CAB_FILE>...

-d <directory>, --directory <directory>
    Extract files into the specified directory instead of the current working directory.

-F <pattern>, --filter <pattern>
    Extract only files whose names match the given shell-style pattern. Wildcards like '*' and '?' can be used.

-L, --lowercase
    Convert all extracted filenames to lowercase. Useful for preventing issues on case-sensitive file systems.

-l, --list
    List the contents of the cabinet file, including file names, sizes, and modification dates, without actually extracting them.

-q, --quiet
    Suppress all standard output messages during extraction, showing only error messages.

-e, --extract
    Explicitly specifies the extraction action. This is the default behavior if no other action option (like -l) is provided.

-s, --split
    Enable support for extracting files from multi-part (split) cabinet archives, which are archives spread across multiple CAB files.

-X <encoding>, --encoding <encoding>
    Specify the character encoding used for filenames within the cabinet file, e.g., 'UTF-8' or 'CP1252'.

-V, --version
    Display the version information of the msexpand utility and exit.

-h, --help
    Display a brief help message showing common options and usage, then exit.

msexpand is a command-line utility used to extract files from Microsoft Cabinet (.CAB) archives. It is often provided as a symbolic link to the cabextract utility, offering a direct way to unpack files contained within these proprietary archive formats. CAB files are commonly used by Microsoft for software distribution, updates, and system recovery.

By mimicking the functionality of Microsoft's expand.exe, msexpand allows Linux/Unix users to easily access the contents of CAB files without needing Windows-specific tools. Its primary function is to decompress and extract files, making it an essential tool for interacting with Windows-specific archives in a non-Windows environment.

msexpand is specifically designed for Microsoft Cabinet (.CAB) files and cannot be used to extract other archive types like ZIP, TAR, or GZIP. Users might encounter issues with filenames containing non-ASCII characters if the correct character encoding is not specified using the -X or --encoding option.

msexpand is typically provided as a symbolic link to the cabextract utility. cabextract was developed as an open-source project to provide Microsoft Cabinet file extraction capabilities on Unix-like operating systems. Its creation aimed to fill a gap by offering a command-line equivalent to Microsoft's expand.exe, allowing users to handle CAB files common in Windows environments without needing proprietary tools or Windows itself.

cabextract(1), unzip(1), tar(1), gzip(1), 7z(1)