File Compaction Manager

You are used to work under Windows now, so you don't need DOS anymore. This is fine but what if a Windows system file becomes corrupt. To fix it, you have to extract it from a .ZIP or .CAB file under DOS. You knew how to do it but forgot the right syntax.

File Compaction Manager (CM) comes in very handy here. It is a menu driven "point and shoot" interface, which lets you work under DOS in an intuitive way with ARJ, LHA (.LZH), PK(UN)ZIP and RAR archivers as well as MS Windows' .CAB files (only view and extract).

You can look into archive files as though they were subdirectories and extract, add or delete individual files in it.

CM frees you from the tedious task of entering commands at the DOS prompt which is often a source of errors due to mistyping or reversing the order of parameters.

CM was written in Assembler, therefore it is incredibly fast and small (only 13 KB).

It has some unusual features for a DOS program:

  • Two windows layout (Norton Commander like).
  • You can work with existing archive files as well as create new ones.
  • Filter function for a more efficient Directory as well as Listing view.
  • The use of a mouse is supported.
  • Settings can be saved to the cm.ini file.
  • You can look into (DOS) self-extracting archives.
  • You can view the contents of an archive file contained in another archive file and extract files from it.
  • You can make associations with applications based on the extension in the Listing view. For example: if the file pointer is on a filename mytext.txt and you press [Enter], CM will open it in the editor/viewer of your choice.
  • CM needs only 64 KB of memory above the amount used by the archive program.