Description of the Windows 2000 Driver.cab Cabinet File

View products that this article applies to.

This article was previously published under Q230644

Expand all | Collapse all

SUMMARY

This article describes the Driver.cab cabinet file in Windows 2000.

MORE INFORMATION

The Driver.cab cabinet file in Windows 2000 contains all of the drivers for Windows 2000. The advantages of compressing all of the drivers into one large file include:

When you install a new device (PCMCIA card, USB keyboard, Printer, etc) on your computer, you do not need the Windows 2000 CD-ROM or a network connection.
The amount of space is reduced significantly on hard disks that use large cluster sizes.
The more efficient LZX compression reduces space used on the CD-ROM.
It takes less time to install on a network.
Enables remote install services client computers to install drivers for new devices locally. It also allows the RIprep feature to support different hardware between the source computer used to create an installation image and the destination computer installing that image.

The Driver.cab file is installed into the following hidden folder:

%SystemRoot%\Driver Cache\platform\driver.cab

This folder location can be found in the following registry key:

HKLM\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Setup\DriverCachePath