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I was looking at my C:\Windows folder on Windows 7 today and noticed a really old version of zip.exe

Copyright (C) 1990-1999 Info-ZIP
Type 'zip "-L"' for software license.
Zip 2.3 (November 29th 1999). Usage:
zip [-options] [-b path] [-t mmddyyyy] [-n suffixes] [zipfile list] [-xi list]

Is this a hidden gem of Windows or did this get into the folder some other way? I have always wanted a command line way to zip/unzip from a stock Windows install.

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I have a bunch of zipfldr.dll in my Windows 7 install. But no zip.exe – Smetad Anarkist Jan 31 at 6:53
@SmetadAnarkist zipfldr.dll is in System32. Please read carefully the question. – Steven Penny Jan 31 at 6:55
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I think you could make a definite argument that this isn't a SU-type question. Then again, you could do the opposite, too. In any case, that's kinda cool. Apparently this version has bugs: info-zip.org/FAQ.html#corruption – Marcus Chan Jan 31 at 7:04

3 Answers

up vote 1 down vote accepted

Windows NT has never included such file. Looks like it was installed by some third-party software.

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I just installed a fresh copy of windows 7 pro SP1 and there is no zip.exe in C:\Windows. Maybe you are just really lucky!

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Looking up Info-ZIP shows a user-group that have created 'free, portable, high-quality versions of the Zip and UnZip compressor-archiver utilities that are compatible with the DOS-based PKZIP'.

Apparently their versions have been used in quite a number of places.

Some of the more interesting ones (well, historically speaking) include the use of UnZip code in the unzip.dll distributed with IBM's OS/2 Warp BonusPak and WebExplorer, as part of the reinstallation code for the IBM Aptivas preloaded with OS/2 Warp, and as part of IBM's Infoprint product. Sun used Info-ZIP's self-extractor to distribute the NT version of their HotJava browser, Novell uses UnZip for NetWare 6 installation, and SAP includes it in Business One. Various Windows products such as WinZip and the DynaZIP DLLs incorporate Info-ZIP code, too. And let us not forget Pretty Good Privacy (PGP), an excellent encryption program that uses Info-ZIP code as a first step in encrypting files. Info-ZIP's primary compression engine has also been spun off into the free zlib compression library, used in Netscape/Mozilla/Firefox, the Linux kernel, Windows, Java, virtually all PNG-supporting software, and countless other products.

Maybe something in that list points to software you may have installed that included the zip.exe in your windows folder.

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