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Windows: Extract files from a Windows MSU Update File

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Hi,

Windows builtin utility for extracting cab or msu files is expand

Usage is simple if you want to extract all files. Parameter -F defines the files to extract, the second parameter is the msu file and the third the directory to extract the files to. The directory must exist. 

mkdir windows10.0-kb4056892-x64
D:\temp> expand -F:* windows10.0-kb4056892-x64_.msu windows10.0-kb4056892-x64
windows10.0-kb4056892-x64\WSUSSCAN.cab....
windows10.0-kb4056892-x64\Windows10.0-K....
windows10.0-kb4056892-x64\Windows10.0-K....
windows10.0-kb4056892-x64\Windows10.0-K.....

The msu files contains usually 4 files: WSUSSCAN.cab, the cab files with update files and a txt and xml files which describes the update.

To extract all files run expand against the cab file. Same procudure as above. First create a folder and extract files to it

D:\temp> cd windows10.0-kb4056892-x64
D:\temp\windows10.0-kb4056892-x64> mkdir cabextracted
D:\temp\windows10.0-kb4056892-x64> expand -F:* Windows10.0-KB4056892-x64.cab cabextracted
...

Michael

2 thoughts on “Windows: Extract files from a Windows MSU Update File”

  2. Because DISM was failing to repair a few corrupt files in WinSxS, this was very useful to retrieve those that I couldn’t source from anywhere else besides the original updates where they originated from. Thanks.

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