Unpacker

Unpacker is a small Windows command-line tool for extracting files from supported installer packages.

Current version: 1.1.1

Download

Download the latest package from GitHub Releases.

Supported Formats

• ISSetupStream
• Windows Installer .msi packages
• Microsoft Cabinet .cab packages
• InstallShield Cabinet .hdr / .cab packages
• InstallShield overlay tables:
  • counted UTF-16 tables
  • legacy ANSI tables used by older setup files
  • encrypted InstallShield archives with M1024/zlib payloads

Build

Requirements: Windows and .NET Framework 4.7.2.

git clone https://github.com/pawstas80/Unpacker.git
cd Unpacker
dotnet build .\Unpacker.sln -c Release

Release Package

.\scripts\build-release.ps1

The script creates artifacts\Unpacker-v1.1.1-win-x64.zip with the exe and project documents.

Usage

.\Unpacker\bin\Release\Unpacker.exe [options] <setup.exe|package.msi|archive.cab|data1.hdr> [output-directory]
.\Unpacker\bin\Release\Unpacker.exe --help
.\Unpacker\bin\Release\Unpacker.exe --version

If output-directory is not provided, files are extracted next to the input file. Extraction writes a detailed Unpacker.log file to the output directory by default.

Common options:

• --list - list supported package contents without extracting
• --test - test supported package extraction without keeping files
• --recursive - extract supported packages found inside the output
• --max-depth <n> - recursion depth, default 3
• --quiet - keep console output minimal
• --verbose - print every processed file
• --log <file> / --no-log - customize or disable logging

For MSI packages, --test uses a temporary administrative extraction and removes the temporary files when it finishes.

License

Copyright 2026 pawstas80.

Licensed under the Apache License 2.0.

Third-party notices are listed in THIRD-PARTY-NOTICES.md.