Making .CAB files

[PRB]

What's the best [free] solution for making CAB files? I'm always hunting for an application that will do this, like winzip makes ZIP files, and it always seems "clunky" and/or buggy.

Thanks!

[java2srv]

Paul,
The FS9 (FS2004) SDK has a CAB file maker. It is in the CABDir SDK.

The Scenery Hall of Fame hosts the FS9 SDK -- CABDir is all the way at the bottom of the page:

http://www.scenery.org/tutorials_fs2k4_SDK.htm


Microsoft still hosts the FS9 SDK also, the links are listed in this knowledge base article - once again all the way at the bottom of the page:

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/555857

Links are not live from the Microsoft article so you have to cut and past to start the downloads.

:wavey:
Jack

[PRB]

(Duh) What a dummy I am!

Thank you sir!
:ernae:

[N332DW]

place all the desired gauges into a folder with the name you want the cab file to be.
locate the cabdir.exe in the FSX SDK folders
( ... if you have the SDK installed )

mine is ...
"C:\Program Files\Microsoft Games\Microsoft Flight Simulator X SDK\SDK\SimObject Creation Kit\Cabdir SDK"

place the desired cab folder just created in this directory.

drag the and drop the folder onto the cabdir.exe icon and after a few seconds a new .cab file appears with the cab folder name

to my knowledge this only works with gauges, i haven't tried it with other file types

[PRB]

It does indeed work with any file types. Works great. Thanks, all.

[Piglet]

I use IZArc (free from somewhere) for all my gauge .cab's. Never had any probs...

[Lionheart]

Yep... IZark will decompile them, and the freeware FS9 CAB compiler will double compile them. (For some reason, it always does a double pass during compiling to a CAB package).



Bill

[rohan]

Please can you tell me if there is a difference between decompiling a CAB file and using WinZip to open a CAB file and extract a GAU file from it. Not at all sure why I might want to do this, but seemed like an interesting question,
thanks in advance,
Ro
:ernae:

[empeck]

I didn't cared for CAB files in my Pirat, as you may check see there is a folder with XML files inside (OK, I forgot to make them, and released Pirat with folder instead of CAB archive :173go1:)

[Lionheart]

Please can you tell me if there is a difference between decompiling a CAB file and using WinZip to open a CAB file and extract a GAU file from it. Not at all sure why I might want to do this, but seemed like an interesting question,
thanks in advance,
Ro
:ernae:

There should be no difference. A CAB file is basically a form of ZIP file format, but slightly different. How different, I do not know. Could be just in the name; CAB/ZIP, etc. They both unzip the same though.



Empeck,

I often wonder if having a gauge folder instead of a CAB file is faster on the computer performance wise. Nothing has to be decompiled and held in memory if its in a gauge folder.


Bill

[n4gix]

I often wonder if having a gauge folder instead of a CAB file is faster on the computer performance wise. Nothing has to be decompiled and held in memory if its in a gauge folder.

In human terms, there is no discernable difference between the two scenarios. When was the last time you noticed a 0.55ms difference? :icon_lol:

[rdyoung]

But there does seem to be a difference among .CAB files, presumeably from the way they are created or from the utility used to create them. This has always been a bit of a mystery to me but some .CAB files cause a significant (1-3 seconds) delay when loading the aircraft or when loading the panel into FS Panel Studio, at least for me. I have been able to alleviate the delayed loading by extracting the .CAB contents and re-creating the .CAB file using CABDIR. I have not taken the time to track down why or how the slow ones have been created. I believe the most recent one was part of a Rarewings model (Alcor maybe?), and Alphasim and Just Flight models from 2-3 years ago had some of these as well.

Rick

[Dangerous Beans]

There is a difference between the FS9 and FSX cabdir's

For instance the cab file for the FSX Shockwave (A2A) B-17 was make with the FS9 cabdir, if you recompile it with the FSX cabdir it loads faster.