CAB Wizard (Windows Embedded CE 6.0)

  • Article

1/6/2010

When you finish developing your driver or application, you can use the CAB Wizard to create cabinet (.cab) files to facilitate installation of your driver or application on devices. This file acts as a container, holding all necessary device driver or application files in one location, which ensures that these files are present at installation.

You create a .cab file by first using a text editor to create an .inf file and then using the CAB Wizard command-line tool (Cabwiz.exe) at the command prompt.** For Windows Embedded CE, the CAB Wizard is typically found in <Platform Builder installation path>\CEPB\Bin. **

This results in the creation of an unsigned .cab file. For more information, see Information File.

The following example shows the command-line syntax for the CAB Wizard:

"inf_file" [dest_dir] [err_file]
[cpu_type [hardware_platform_label]] [platform_label [platform_label]]

Parameters

  • inf_file
    Full path and filename to the CAB Wizard setup .inf file.

    Note

    This file must be UTF-8 encoded if it contains extended characters.

  • /dest
    Specifies that there is an user-selected destination directory for the .cab files, using the directory called out in dest_dir.

  • dest_dir
    Destination directory for the .cab files.

    The default destination is the inf_file directory where the CAB Wizard setup .inf file is located.

  • /err
    Creates a log file using the file name that err_file specifies.
  • err_file
    File name for a log file containing all warnings and errors that are encountered when the .cab files are compiled.
  • /cpu
    Creates a .cab file for each processor type that you specify.
  • cpu_type
    An arbitrary label that you use to differentiate between different processor types in the setup .inf file. For more information, see CEDevice.

  • hardware_platform_label
    Creates a .cab file for each hardware platform label that you specify.

    A hardware platform label is an arbitrary label that is used in the Win32 setup .inf file to differentiate between different hardware platform types. For more information, see CEDevice.

  • **
  • **
  • /platform
    Creates a .cab file for each platform label that you specify in the associated .inf file. Use this parameter only if the associated .inf file contains a [CEDevice] section. Otherwise, creation of the .cab file does not succeed. For more information, see Platform and CEDevice.

  • platform_label
    The label that specifies the platform type.

    A platform label is an arbitrary label that is used in the setup .inf file to differentiate between different platform types. For more information, see Platform.

  • /nouninstall
    Specifies that the application does not appear in the Remove Programs dialog on the target device. When used, the associated application cannot be uninstalled.
  • /compress
    Specifies that the .cab file created is compressed.

Remarks

Since the CAB Wizard can use a single .inf file and multiple application binaries to create multiple .cab files, you can use the cpu_type and hardware_platform_label parameters to help create a separate .cab file for each specific processor or platform type that you specify. For more information, see Information File.

The following code example creates a .cab file for an ARM-family processor, assuming that the setup .inf file contains the associated hardware platform label MyARMDevice:

cabwiz.exe  "c:\myfile.inf"  /err myfile.err  /cpu  MyARMDevice

The following code example creates two .cab files for the ARM-family processor and the processor associated with your Emulator, assuming that the setup .inf file contains the MyARMDevice and MyEMUL hardware platform labels:

cabwiz.exe MyFile.inf /cpu MyARMDevice MyEMUL

See Also

Concepts

Utilities
Information File
Cabinet (.cab) File Overview
Optional Setup.dll Files for Installation