ZIPmagic

Hello,

I was using ZipMagic with WIN98 and WIN2Kand really liked it. I recently found it and was happy to see it back for new OS. Yesterday I downloaded a copy and I installed it, however it doesn't seem to work properly. I did not enter an activation code, so far, but the installer proceeds even without it so it seemed OK.

When you install ZipMagic and ask for archives to display as folders, they do... kind of. You can navigate them as folders only in explorer, but anything else sees archives as files. For example, you use File->Open from any application and archives are seen as files, not as folder. You can't open a file inside a zip folder from any app, unless you extract the file first.

This is in contrast with the older ZipMagic as I remember you could even install applications in zip files. Windows and any app would see them as true folder not "kind of folders", but so far I have not been able to achieve that. I've tried two computers, one with Win8.1 and the other with 2K3. Is this caused by the fact that I did not enter a code for ZipMagic during installation?

Thank you,

No, this is because ZIPmagic's implementation is based on shell namespace extension technology, which is the only official way of making archives look like folders on Windows XP and newer. I do apologize for the inconvenience. You will only be able to browse inside archives as ordinary folders inside Windows Explorer (or other compatible shell emulator applications, if they have been authored properly).

Too bad, because we need transparency in the application we are interested in.

Of course, we still have the option to use Stacker on the disk the data resides on. Is there any way to test the amount of compression achievable by Stacker before applying it to the entire drive? We already use NTFS compression on that disk and it achieves nearly 2:1. Will Stacker's compression be somewhat comparable to that of a zip file?

Thanks,

Your data must be highly compressible if even NTFS compression gave you 2:1. I wonder if DriveSpace can exceed that ratio for you (if it is purely a data drive, probably not).

Try Stacker, but decompress your NTFS compression first. DriveSpace can do this very quickly for you if your underlying storage is an SSD, due to efficient multi-threading.

I project Stacker would give you a ratio of at least 10:1 if NTFS was so good on that drive. Unfortunately, there's no way to test the ratio at this time (thanks for the feature suggestion).

I am actually copying the disk content (several GB) to an external HD. Once done, I will run Stacker and see what happens. Apparently, Stacker is the only one I can use, since the disk will have to be used on Win Server 2K3

Thank you,

Stacker requires data deduplication services, which are typically available with Server 2012 and Server 2012 R2, but may be applied to Windows 8 and Windows 8.1 (as long as they are 64 bit) following the instructions here:

http://weikingteh.wordpress.com/2013/01 ... windows-8/ - For Windows 8 x64
http://weikingteh.wordpress.com/2013/10 ... ndows-8-1/ - For Windows 8.1 x64

You cannot run Stacker on Server 2003. The only avenue available for you on Server 2003 is DriveSpace, but on OS's earlier than Vista, DriveSpace cannot beat Windows's built-in NTFS compression (except in terms of speed).

Uh, oh. Looks like I'm out of luck then... However, our machine running Server 2K3 x86 can be upgraded to Server 2K8 R2 or even 2K12. I will try DriveSpace and see what I get. Regarding the data dedup services, I was looking online for the info when I received your reply.

Thanks,

If you can upgrade to K12, you're good to go with Stacker!