EXPAND.exe

Uncompress one or more compressed .CAB cabinet files.

Syntax
      EXPAND [-R] Source Destination
      EXPAND -R Source [Destination]
      EXPAND -I Source [Destination]
      EXPAND -D Source.cab [-F:Files]
      EXPAND Source.cab -F:Files Destination

Options
   Source       Source file specification.  Wildcards can be used.

  -F:Files      Name of files to expand from a .CAB.

  Destination   Destination file | path specification.
                Destination can be a directory.
                If Source is multiple files and -r is not specified,
                Destination must be a directory.

  -R            Rename expanded files.

  -I            Rename expanded files but ignore directory structure.

  -D            Display list of files in source.
                The output display does not display the PATH, but will use it on the extraction.

The Microsoft File Expansion Utility dates back to MS-DOS 5 in 1990 supplied on floppy disc.

Versions of Expand prior to 6.0 (Windows 7) have buggy handling of cab files that contain subfolders, they will restore everything to the same folder potentially overwriting files.

Examples

C:\> Expand -d demo.cab

“There’s no limit possible to the expansion of each one of us” ~ Charles M. Schwab

Related commands

ATTRIB - Display or change file attributes.
COPY - Copy one or more files to another location.
EXTRACT - Uncompress CAB files.
MAKECAB - Create .CAB files.
Equivalent bash command (Linux): gzip - Compress or decompress named file(s).