Compressing your files and folders might be beneficial if your looking to save disk space, email an important attachment, and to archive a group of files. While Windows operating systems have included a built in file compression tool since at least XP, there are some limitations. For one thing, Windows zip tool only works with NTFS volumes and the .zip file type.
There are numerous other Windows file compression types. ZIP, GZ, RAR, and CAB are just a few of them. Unfortunately, if you try to compress or uncompress a file type other then ZIP with Windows built in zip utility, you are out of luck. While, ZIP is a most common file compression extension type, there maybe times when you receive or need to create other file types.
Also, a file size limit for an individual ZIP file is four gigabytes. Seven zip, Bandizip, and Bitser are freely available file compression utilities for Windows operating systems. If your looking for an industry standard file compression program that will compress and uncompress most file types then you might want to get Seven Zip file archiver.
7 Zip works on following Microsoft Windows operating systems:
* Windows 10
* Windows 8
* Windows 7
* Windows Vista
* Windows XP
* Windows Server 2012
* Windows Server 2008
* Windows Server 2003
* Windows Server 2000
* Windows Server NT