Cabinet self-extractor for XP SP2 drivers

Having spent over 10 hours trying to get XP SP2 Fax services to install, (see other post in this forum), and thus having read all the Fax FAQ info on this and MS support sites, I am at this point: It appears that the file(s) that are needed for Fax setup (and requesting the insertion of non-existent SP2 CD, as my laptop came w/SP2 pre-installed) are indeed already on my hard drive, but with a modified file extension, e.g. it's looking for fxsapi.dll but this file is on my hard drive as fxsapi.dl_, (in C:\System software\I386.)
Whiskeyman provided a link to a site whose Fax FAQ supplied the following:

When the installation routine is unable to find the necessary installation files (even when directed to the appropriate i386 folder) it usually means that the installation files are compressed. This is often the case when the files are pre-copied by a manufacturer on the hard drive. If you do a search for the files that the installation routine claims are missing (fxsapi.dll and fxcfgwz.dll) you won't find them, but you will find fxsapi.dl_ and fxscfgwz.dl_. These are compressed DLL files and will need to be decompressed. Double click on them and you will get a prompt for the file to use to open them. Click Browse…. and select Win32 Cabinet Self-Extractor, which is in the system folder. With any luck it will uncompress them all and make them visible as DLL files. The install routine still may not find these files. If so, then you must manually direct the installation routine to the i386 folder that contains these extracted files.suggested that these modified file extensions are an indication that they are compressed files, and that they can be restored to usefulness by the use of a self-extractor program, perhaps to be found as Win32 Cabinet Self-Extractor.

I cannot find this self-extractor file on my hard drive; can anyone tell me what program or procedure I can use to convert these files from their current state to useable .dll's??

 

On my WinXP Home system.

C:\WINDOWS\system32\wextract.exe = Win32 Cabinet Self-Extractor

 

These are not Cabinet files. They are however compressed. The command you want is Expand. For example:

Start, Run, CMD

CD \i386 <<< ------- assuming this is the directory path for \i386
Expand fxsapi.dl_ fxsapi.dll
Expand fxscfgwz.dl_ fxscfgwz.dll

(Note: there is a space after dl_ in both lines above)

 

Thank you both, Whiskeyman and Bill Castner... I had, in fact found and invoked wextract.exe as I saw it claimed it was the Self Extractor.. it self-cancelled on 'missing element' or something..

I will use the EXTRACT command Bill, but I am curious as to why this particular set of files in the System Software/I386 folder - about 1400 of them - would all be 'unexpanded'?? By definition, it seems they are useless being left as .DL_ files... is there different syntax for the expand command, e.g. EXPAND ALL? Thanks again for your help!!

 

I'm a bit confused here too. What you're seeing is exactly what you'd see on a WinXP cd and it's what I have copied to my hard drive (from my XP cd). Any time I've had to install something that required the cd, I've never had any problem.

 

Well,thanks to Bill Castner, I have fax sevices now up and running fine.. I just left the other 1400+ files as .dl_.

For the record, in case someone else uses this fix, the second file needed to be 'expanded' for fax services is fxscfgwz.dl_

Great BBS! I sent this identical cry for help to M$ this afternoon.. be interesting to see what my response will be...??

 

The \i386 directory is there so that if you do an SFC /Scannow it can work without prompting you for the physical CD that they did not give you when you bought the computer. I corrected the spelling of the second file above, thank you.