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Tech Tips / Windows NT / Disk and File Management

Expand your files

When you lose a critical system file, you don't necessarily have to reinstall your operating system. Use Expand.exe to restore your files to the system. This will work in both NT and 9x. (Expand is included in NT, the Windows 98 Resource Kit, and the OLDDOS directory of the Windows 95 CD.)

The syntax of the program is as follows:

  Expand [-r] Source Destination

The -r flag will rename a file, the source can be one or many files, and the destination can be a file or directory. (It must be a directory if the source is multiple files.) The compressed files are usually found as somefile.ex_ with the underscore signifying the compressed file. On 9x systems, these files are usually found inside a .CAB file, so you will need a program like WinZip to extract the files.