Zip files as directories?

[Howard Schwartz]

Excuse the ignorance, but I've heard of a windows shell extension, zip.dll
or some such that allows explorer to treat zip files (or substitute your
favorite type of compression) as directories. I also heard it does not work
very well.

If there is a freeware version of such a thing I would like to find it. I
want to easily store some kinds of files (e.g., sent mail messsages in
various folders ) in a compressed archive. I could do this directly from
the mail client, if the shell thought filename.zip was a directory.

 

[Conor]

Excuse the ignorance, but I've heard of a windows shell extension, zip.dll
or some such that allows explorer to treat zip files (or substitute your
favorite type of compression) as directories. I also heard it does not work
very well.

If there is a freeware version of such a thing I would like to find it. I
want to easily store some kinds of files (e.g., sent mail messsages in
various folders ) in a compressed archive. I could do this directly from
the mail client, if the shell thought filename.zip was a directory.

What version of Windows are you using? I thought XP did this natively? A

 

[K3]

Excuse the ignorance, but I've heard of a windows shell extension,
zip.dll
or some such that allows explorer to treat zip files (or substitute
your
favorite type of compression) as directories. I also heard it does
not work
very well.

If there is a freeware version of such a thing I would like to find
it. I
want to easily store some kinds of files (e.g., sent mail messsages in
various folders ) in a compressed archive. I could do this directly
from
the mail client, if the shell thought filename.zip was a directory.


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I've been using Optimal Archive for a few years and like it. It sometimes
*chokes* when unzipping large archives (over 1 gb).

http://www.optimalaccess.com/en/product_archive.htm

--
Kendall F. Stratton III
Fort Fairfield, Maine USA
k3@(86_THE_SPAM)maine.rr.com
http://home.maine.rr.com/k3

"Support bacteria -- it's the only culture some people have!"

 

[Adam Piggott]

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Hash: SHA1

Excuse the ignorance, but I've heard of a windows shell extension,
zip.dll or some such that allows explorer to treat zip files (or
substitute your favorite type of compression) as directories. I also
heard it does not work very well.

If there is a freeware version of such a thing I would like to find it.
I want to easily store some kinds of files (e.g., sent mail messsages in
various folders ) in a compressed archive. I could do this directly
from the mail client, if the shell thought filename.zip was a directory.

As K3 said, XP should support it. If not, let us know and we might be able
to switch it back on.

If you're using Windows 2000 or XP, they also support file/folder
compression. Right-click on a file or folder, click on Advanced and then
check "Compress contents to save disk space".

Otherwise, I believe the new version of Winzip /may/ support this feature,
you might want to check out http://www.winzip.com/

HTH

Adam Piggott,
Proprietor,
Proactive Services (Computing)
http://www.proactiveservices.co.uk/
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[Terry]

Excuse the ignorance, but I've heard of a windows shell extension, zip.dll
or some such that allows explorer to treat zip files (or substitute your
favorite type of compression) as directories. I also heard it does not work
very well.

If there is a freeware version of such a thing I would like to find it. I
want to easily store some kinds of files (e.g., sent mail messsages in
various folders ) in a compressed archive. I could do this directly from
the mail client, if the shell thought filename.zip was a directory.

This feature is built into windows XP and works well.

It is also built into windows me, butis a little quirky.

You can "add" this feature to windows 2000, if you have access to a
windows me machine. You need to copy 3 files from the windows me
machine and register one dll. This makes the Win2K system work like
WinME -- ie, somewhat quirky. When I tried it a couple of years ago, I
found the problems to be annoying enough so that I uninstalled it. See
Q26 on this page http://netez.com/2xExplorer/faq.html for information
on how to do it.

As an example of quirky -- you could save attachements from an email
client directly to a zip file, as you suggest in your post. However,
if you dragged a zip file to an email message, intending to send the
zip file as an attachment, the system would interpret the zip file as
a folder, and make each file inside the zip file a separate attachment
to the message. The only way I could attach a zip file to an email
message was to type the name of the file.

In windows XP, this works correctly, so you can easily email zip
files.

Note that all of these extensions only handle zip files. They don't
handle .gz, .tar, .rar, or any of the zillions of other compressed
formats. So you may still want a zip program to deal with those.

Terry

 

[Howard Schwartz]

What version of Windows are you using? I thought XP did this natively?

Yes, XP does do it natively. I am using win 98 because I still use quite a
few dos programs, that need real dos underneath.

 

[Clif Notes]

Excuse the ignorance, but I've heard of a windows shell extension, zip.dll
or some such that allows explorer to treat zip files (or substitute your
favorite type of compression) as directories. I also heard it does not work
very well.

If there is a freeware version of such a thing I would like to find it. I
want to easily store some kinds of files (e.g., sent mail messsages in
various folders ) in a compressed archive. I could do this directly from
the mail client, if the shell thought filename.zip was a directory.

Hi Howard,

The zip dll can be added to Windows98 through an obscure security
update from Microsoft. A friend of mine made use of this and created an
installer and help file. It's still in beta, but worked well for me.
I've got copies on my server if you'd like to try them.

Installer and Help file.
http://clifnotes.mybesthost.com/download/MS_Zip.exe
http://clifnotes.mybesthost.com/download/MS_Zip.chm

Let me know if you have any problems.

Clif
http://clifnotes.tk
Devoted to promoting Freeware and Free Information

 

[Clif Notes]

Correction to zip installer. I misspelled the download link.

This link should work.
http://clifnotes.mybesthost.com/download/MS_ZIP.exe

Clif
http://clifnotes.net & http://clifnotes.tk
Devoted to promoting Freeware and Free Information

 

[Clif Notes]

I forgot to note that credit for this little installer goes to:

Me2 @ http://groups.msn.com/computerhelpclub

The directions for manually installing the zip.dll using the MS update
were posted there but you have to be a member to download any files
from the group.

Have fun!

Clif
http://clifnotes.net & http://clifnotes.tk
Devoted to promoting Freeware and Free Information