Announcing CBS Package Inspector for Windows Embedded Standard 7

We’re excited to announce the release of another PowerToy to aid in Windows Embedded Standard 7 development: CBS Package Inspector.  CBS Package Inspector allows for the opening up and inspecting of CBS (Component-Based Servicing) packages, so the manifests can be viewed or examined as needed.  Information contained in these manifests include the components inside the package(s), as well as any registry keys, dependencies, or settings, among other pieces of information.  So what does that mean?  Why would this be useful?  Here are some scenarios that CBS Package Inspector has been quite useful for us:

1. Expanding a QFE (hotfix) package released by Microsoft to see its contents.  It cannot be opened like a zip or rar file because it is compressed in a different manner.
2. Provides a consolidated and single view of what files and registry keys are inside one package, something that could previously only be easily done at component level.
3. For packages that contain other packages, this may not always be detected by tools.  CBS Package Inspector allows you to go through each and every package.

To learn more about CBS Package Inspector and to download and use it, please visit the Package Inspector Code Gallery page.

If you’re interested in our previous PowerToy, Package Mapper, please visit this page.

- JT