Tip for accessing installation CD files without installing Windows.
Let's say you have a Windows installation CD, and you just want to grab a few things fronm there instead of just installing Windows, whether it be a startup sound, cursor, background or scrensaver, so you mount the CD, go in and see this ugly mess:
How are you meant to get anything from there? Well, it's surprisingly simple. These are all compressed files, ready to be extracted when Windows is installed. So they can be opened with 7-Zip. Once opened in 7-Zip, you can retrieve the files and use them to your heart's content.
Here's a guide to the strange file extensions so that you know which files to unzip to access nostalgic media: *.JP_, *.BM_ and *.GI - *.jpg, *.bmp and *.gif. Contains images. *.AV_ - *.avi. Contains videos, but some extracted files may have a different format, such as *.avb. *.WA_ and *.MI_ - *.wav. and *.mid Contains sounds and music. Good luck with *.MI_, though. *.CU_ and *.AN_ - *.cur and *.ani. Contains cursors. *.IC_ - *.ico. Contains icons... if you're lucky. There are other file types that can be found with this extension. *.SC_ - *.scr. Contains screensavers, if you're lucky. *.TX_ and *.RT - *.txt and *.rtf. Contains text files, rich or otherwise. *.TT_ and *.FO_ - *.ttf and *fon. Contains fonts. *.DO_ - *.doc. Contains Word Documents *.XL_ - *.xls. Contains Excel spreadsheets. *.HT_ - *.html. Contains HTML files. They will probably be very, VERY broken, especially if you only extract them. You could, however, find out what files it calls and extract them too. *.ZI_ - *.zip. Contains ZIP files. *.EX_ *.exe. Contains applications. Not recommended to open unless you know what you're doing.
Fun fact: You can open the files from the 7-Zip file manager without having to extract them first. This allows you to sample them before extracting them.
