Partager via

Generating compressed CABs for Pocket PC and Smartphone

  • Article

At a partner event yesterday I was asked if it was possible to generate compressed CAB files for Smartphone and Pocket PC. It turns out the answer is yes and no.

All Smartphone devices support compressed CAB files, and cabwizsp.exe (the tool for creating Smartphone CABs) generates compressed CAB files automatically.

Pocket PC devices do not support compressed CABs. Cabwiz.exe, the tool for creating Pocket PC CABs, does not even implement creating compressed CAB files.

If you have one of the preview drops of Visual Studio 2005 you can use the new cabwiz.exe tool (this version works for both Pocket PC and Smartphone) that's in it to generate compressed CAB as well. To do so you have to add the /compress flag, as the default is to generate uncompressed CABs. These compressed cabs will work on all Smartphone devices, and Pocket PC devices running a future version of Windows Mobile (but none of the current ones).

[Author: Neil Enns]