CAB to TAR.LZ (TLZ) Converter
Convert your cab files to tar.lz online & free
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How to convert CAB to TAR.LZ
Select files from Computer, Google Drive, Dropbox, URL or by dragging it on the page.
Choose tar.lz or any other format you need as a result (more than 200 formats supported)
Let the file convert and you can download your tar.lz file right afterwards
About formats
CAB (Cabinet) is a compressed archive format developed by Microsoft for efficient software distribution and Windows component packaging. Introduced around 1996, CAB files serve as the container format for Windows Installer packages (.msi), Windows system updates, driver distributions, and ActiveX component downloads. The format supports three compression algorithms — MSZIP (Microsoft's Deflate implementation), Quantum (statistical compression), and LZX (an LZ77 variant with Huffman coding optimized for executable files) — with LZX typically delivering the highest ratios. CAB archives organize files into folders (compression units) where files within the same folder are compressed as a continuous stream for improved ratios, and archives can span multiple volumes for distribution on size-limited media. One advantage is deep Windows ecosystem integration — CAB files are handled natively by Windows without third-party software, used in everything from OS installation media to driver packages and system updates. The LZX compression algorithm provides another strength, achieving particularly strong compression on compiled code and PE executables, which is ideal for the format's primary role in software distribution. Microsoft's makecab tool ships with every Windows installation, and CAB extraction is built into Windows Explorer. The format continues to serve as infrastructure for Windows deployment and update mechanisms across enterprise and consumer environments.
TAR.LZ is a compound archive format combining TAR archiving with lzip compression, a format created by Antonio Diaz Diaz and first released in 2009. The TAR layer bundles files with full Unix metadata into a single stream, and lzip applies LZMA compression with a robust container that includes per-member CRC-32 integrity checking and clean member boundaries. Lzip was designed with long-term archival in mind — it produces a simple, well-documented format with strong error recovery properties: if part of a TAR.LZ file is corrupted, undamaged members can still be extracted, unlike monolithic compressed streams where corruption propagates. The compression ratios are essentially identical to LZMA/XZ since lzip uses the same LZMA algorithm. One advantage is archival resilience — the member-based structure means a multi-part archive can survive partial corruption without losing all data, critical for long-term storage. The clean, minimal format design is another strength: lzip has a simple specification that independent implementations can follow precisely, reducing the risk of compatibility issues over decades of archival. TAR.LZ is used by the GNU Project for distributing source releases and is supported by GNU tar with the --lzip flag, as well as by plzip for parallel compression on multi-core systems.