Clearly a lot of regional variation for this one, so I can only speak from my own experience. Generally I concur with Route21.
To me a cabinet is usually free-standing, sometimes with a glass front and sides and would typically be used to display items as in a "china cabinet" and/or hold bottles of wine and spirits etc, a "drinks/liquor cabinet".
All the enclosed shelving units that you'd find in a kitchen, top and bottom, are usually called cupboards in everyday speech. I sense that cabinet is preferred in the trade and may be coming in but I almost never hear it used with that sense in people's homes.