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I'm looking for some tool that, given a zip/rar/tar/* archive file, mounts it as a new Windows drive. Some tools are WinMount or WinArchive, but I need one that allows me to write/create/delete files as well as read. That is, just as if it were a USB stick or something like that. The file doesn't need to be compressed, just archived is fine. Thanks a lot!

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    I don't know if such software exists, but for must compression and archiving methods; removing or changing any part of any file will take at least as long as creating a new archive from scratch.
    – Eroen
    Dec 13, 2011 at 15:56
  • It doesn't need to be compressed, just archived is fine.
    – caerolus
    Dec 13, 2011 at 16:00
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    Could you use a virtual disk, for example a VHD ( en.wikipedia.org/wiki/VHD_(file_format) )? Should be supported natively in windows 7.
    – Eroen
    Dec 13, 2011 at 16:08
  • Yes! didn't know these were supported natively by Windows 7. The problem was having to synchronize tens of thousands of files between machines..so I figured having them in a single file would be easier. Thank you!
    – caerolus
    Dec 13, 2011 at 16:29
  • @Eroen Still, if there was a way of doing this with zip, rar, tar or whatever, it'd be great in terms of portability and ease of use.
    – caerolus
    Dec 13, 2011 at 16:50

2 Answers 2

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Try Pismo File Mount. Its freeware, supports zip, and ISO, but not .rar

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  • Apparently Prismo can mount 7zip only if it is LZMA? The 'WinArchiver' mentioned by @zackrspv on the other hand seems to support any 7z format (?). Jan 2, 2018 at 21:35
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There are a few utilties out there that can do this, but I use this one:

Win Archiver Virtual Drive

Essentially, you can mount any supported type of archive (zip, rar, 7z, iso, etc), to any # of drives you want, and they act just like regular drive.

Quite useful:

Win Archive Virtual Drive

The image above shows drive K -> O; drive K is actually a mounted RAR file for a .NET project :)

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    doesn't seem to support write operations.
    – Quonux
    Mar 31, 2017 at 19:04
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    @Quonux that would be almost impossible in general case. It's very hard to update archive contents without massive writing overhead other than to append new files. Jul 14, 2018 at 10:48
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    I would argue that it depends on the compressor and its format. It works fine under certain assumptions. One industry case where a online(chunked) compression works is in the Oracle database - oracle.com/technetwork/database/options/compression/…
    – Quonux
    Jul 27, 2018 at 23:48

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