Programs like 7-zip and PeaZip both have an unusual feature: Ability to explore NT paths that Windows Explorer will refuse to load.
You can go to a path like "\\?\Harddisk0Partition2\" in 7-zip file manager or PeaZip. On my PC, that happens to be the EFI partition. (Need to run as Admin before it lets you access the EFI partition)
Sysinternals WinObj will let you see all the paths in the NT Object Namespace. To convert an NT Object Namespace path into a standard Windows path, put "\\?\GLOBALROOT\" at the beginning of the path. Windows Explorer and the File Dialogs will refuse to open such paths, but many Win32 applications will accept those paths as command line arguments.
Not so much "refuse", but lacking code to go down those paths. ReactOS includes built-in shell extensions to browse native NT device paths and the registry right in Explorer. Its same shell extensions can even be installed on Windows to achieve the same thing in Microsoft's Windows Explorer :)
To add to this list of unusual features, 7-zip can also parse many self-extracting PE executables and display the executable sections of ELFs and PEs. I'm not sure if this has been documented anywhere, though.
Also note that, while File Explorer and Windows file/open dialog boxes don't accept "\\?"-style paths at all, you can use the "Run" command (Windows Key+R or choose "Run" from the Start Menu) to open any available (connected and online) volume in File Explorer using a path of the form "\\?\Volume{UUID}\"[1], even if it hasn't been assigned a drive letter or mount point.
Note that, if UAC is enabled, this won't work for EFI system partitions unless you're running Explorer elevated, which can be tricky. You used to be able to kill the explorer.exe process and start a new one from an elevated command prompt or Task Manager, but this no longer works in Windows 11 (Explorer starts, but not elevated).
[1] For GPT disks, this UUID is the GPT partition's unique ID.
I have no idea how the ID is calculated for non-GPT disks, though I have noticed a few interesting properties:
• For volumes on MBR-partitioned disks, all but the first eight bytes of the UUID are zero.
• The UUID is not obviously related to a FAT filesystem's serial number.
• UUIDs are assigned to devices with removable media like optical drives and SD card readers even when empty, and do not change when media is inserted or removed.
In any case, the easiest way I know of find this is using PowerShell: use "Get-Disk" to find the disk number (and if this doesn't give you enough information to identify the correct disk, use "Get-Disk | Format-List" for more information), "Get-Partition -DiskNumber n" to find the partition number (if the disk is partitioned), and, finally, "Get-Partition -DiskNumber n -PartitionNumber m | Get-Volume | select Path" to get the desired path.
In the case of non-hard disk devices like optical drives, "Get-Disk" and/or "Get-Partition" may not be available, so use "Get-Disk | Format-List" for detailed information on all available volumes, including all volume paths and, hopefully, enough additional information to identify the volume you want.
You can also find volume paths with WinObj or the fsutil command, but PowerShell provides more useful information to help identify the correct volume.
Reminds me of when I used WinZip to copy files from a shared directory that had non-ASCII (non latin even!) characters in the file names over 20 years ago. Windows Explorer refused to do it. Can't remember the error message, WinZip did the job.
Currently using it under Linux because it's able to extract the malformed large zip files generated by onedrive, that give a corrupted file error when you try to open them using the native file extractor. See https://www.bitsgalore.org/2020/03/11/does-microsoft-onedriv...
I've been using this for over a decade. I keep using it because it extracts files directly where you want them, instead of extracting to a temp folder, then copying to where you want, multiplying IO traffic by up to 2. It also lets me use 7z files with zstd compression, though I'm not sure which other software supports it.
Moving files from one directory to another directory on the same filesystem doesn't actually result in any data getting moved, only the directory entries are changed
You’ve made a big assumption about being on the same file system there. We had a CI job that was spending an awful lot of time in fetching cached artifacts.
We investigated and it turns out that CI was pulling to %TMP%, but we were actual executing the builds on a separate EBS volume meaning we downloaded and wrote to an EBS volume, then had to copy it to another remote volume, it was super easy to spot on windows, but I’m not sure I would have twigged it as easily if we were moving from /tmp to /data/dira
On Linux this is becoming a rarity; '/tmp' (the usual $TMPDIR) is mounted using tmpfs, a distinct memory-backed filesystem. Windows on the other hand is happy for this to reside on your physical disk, persistently. I think - this isn't my area.
This almost guarantees your "yes, but" doesn't apply for anyone using Fedora Linux, for example. I dare say nearly any distribution that includes systemd, and probably/consequently, 'tmp.mount'.
While it is memory backed, one can only copy/read from this as fast as the destination can write.
In some restricted environments (e.g. containers in CI, build servers or AWS Lambda) you may have limited disk space or no write access at all, so it is useful to have a tool that can stream to memory while decompressing on the fly, and discarding what you don't need.
The trick to do it using the default 7zip file manager is to open the .7z file in the manager (double clicking it, not right clicking it), and extract the archive whenever you want it - it will be extracted straight there with no transition using temporary folder.
Edit: just noticed it was mentioned in other reply, but as aunpack, a symlink to atool. I got used to the -x|-l|-a|... style and rarely remember the alternative names.
PeaZip is great software, and doubly so because it is written using Lazarus and compiled with Free Pascal. I highly recommend giving it a try, if only to experience that high quality software can be built using tools that lead you somewhat off the beaten path.
Unfortunately, its lead developer has recently posted[0] that he has to undergo what seems to be complicated, major eye surgery, and that he will probably be unable to continue development :(
Neither the existence of this link nor anything in it contradicts the developer's earlier post. It looks like the situation was inaccurately summarized by the HN user with the top comment here—the PeaZip developer didn't announce that he or she was going to stop working on PeaZip.
> Drag & drop from app to system is certainly a mayor usability boost, but it is not simple to implement as it requires a dedicated solution for each supported OS and desktop environment.
Off topic, but this is why many devs choose electron.
I searched around and found this tutorial[0] on the official wiki. Seems like a decent intro to the history & syntax of the language. There’s also another tutorial[1] on the more modern iteration of the language, as well as some video tutorials[2] on using the IDE for GUI development.
I really don't remember well, long long time ago in Window (XP?) either you can select multiple folders and zip each of them separately and/or you can select multiple zip files and extract them to separate folders within a single context menu
I don't know if this is better, but 7zips developer has an unnerving track record when it comes to security practices. He resisted adopting basic mitigations like DEP and ASLR for a long time, only relenting after a security researcher basically begged him to after finding arbitrary code execution exploits, and he still doesn't want to use any more advanced hardening techniques because they (slightly) bloat the binary size or have a (tiny) performance overhead.
I'm all for lean software but breaking ASLR by stripping the relocation tables, just to shave a few kilobytes off an executable which is primarily intended to parse untrusted files is just reckless.
PeaZip appears to rely on 7zip for most of its supported formats. So Peazip isn't really an alternative if you want to avoid 7zip out of security concerns.
> 7z ... should be placed in (peazip)/res/bin/7z, to manage 7Z files and most of the other supported formats
I personally like libarchive and its bsdtar CLI, which also supports a wide range of formats. I don't know if there's any popular GUI frontend for it though.
I've sworn by 7zip since forever and I still use it primarily, but I'd recommend peazip to anybody who wants 7zip but with a better, more convenient GUI (and workflow/behavior). I still think about switching back to peazip (only used it for a few months), but old habits die hard.
I hate that PeaZip does not support passwords with a quotation mark (") in the UI. I haven't reviewed the code, but I am assuming that they are neither passing the password via a variable (linked library) nor via an execve call (less secure), but via some sub-shell which is a common attack vector and bad security practice. But as I said, I haven't reviewed the code.
I haven't ran nor looked at the code for PeaZip, but the website describes the program as a GUI wrapper around command line utilities. I highly suspect it's the sub-shell thing.
1. Command to unquarantine in docs is wrong. It should be `xattr -d com.apple.quarantine /Applications/peazip.app` not `xattr -dr com.apple.quarantine /Applications/peazip.app`
2. Not available via homebrew
3. Can't open issues, neither on Github nor sourceforge
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You can go to a path like "\\?\Harddisk0Partition2\" in 7-zip file manager or PeaZip. On my PC, that happens to be the EFI partition. (Need to run as Admin before it lets you access the EFI partition)
Sysinternals WinObj will let you see all the paths in the NT Object Namespace. To convert an NT Object Namespace path into a standard Windows path, put "\\?\GLOBALROOT\" at the beginning of the path. Windows Explorer and the File Dialogs will refuse to open such paths, but many Win32 applications will accept those paths as command line arguments.
To add to this list of unusual features, 7-zip can also parse many self-extracting PE executables and display the executable sections of ELFs and PEs. I'm not sure if this has been documented anywhere, though.
Also note that, while File Explorer and Windows file/open dialog boxes don't accept "\\?"-style paths at all, you can use the "Run" command (Windows Key+R or choose "Run" from the Start Menu) to open any available (connected and online) volume in File Explorer using a path of the form "\\?\Volume{UUID}\"[1], even if it hasn't been assigned a drive letter or mount point.
Note that, if UAC is enabled, this won't work for EFI system partitions unless you're running Explorer elevated, which can be tricky. You used to be able to kill the explorer.exe process and start a new one from an elevated command prompt or Task Manager, but this no longer works in Windows 11 (Explorer starts, but not elevated).
[1] For GPT disks, this UUID is the GPT partition's unique ID.
I have no idea how the ID is calculated for non-GPT disks, though I have noticed a few interesting properties:
• For volumes on MBR-partitioned disks, all but the first eight bytes of the UUID are zero.
• The UUID is not obviously related to a FAT filesystem's serial number.
• UUIDs are assigned to devices with removable media like optical drives and SD card readers even when empty, and do not change when media is inserted or removed.
In any case, the easiest way I know of find this is using PowerShell: use "Get-Disk" to find the disk number (and if this doesn't give you enough information to identify the correct disk, use "Get-Disk | Format-List" for more information), "Get-Partition -DiskNumber n" to find the partition number (if the disk is partitioned), and, finally, "Get-Partition -DiskNumber n -PartitionNumber m | Get-Volume | select Path" to get the desired path.
In the case of non-hard disk devices like optical drives, "Get-Disk" and/or "Get-Partition" may not be available, so use "Get-Disk | Format-List" for detailed information on all available volumes, including all volume paths and, hopefully, enough additional information to identify the volume you want.
You can also find volume paths with WinObj or the fsutil command, but PowerShell provides more useful information to help identify the correct volume.
We investigated and it turns out that CI was pulling to %TMP%, but we were actual executing the builds on a separate EBS volume meaning we downloaded and wrote to an EBS volume, then had to copy it to another remote volume, it was super easy to spot on windows, but I’m not sure I would have twigged it as easily if we were moving from /tmp to /data/dira
On Linux this is becoming a rarity; '/tmp' (the usual $TMPDIR) is mounted using tmpfs, a distinct memory-backed filesystem. Windows on the other hand is happy for this to reside on your physical disk, persistently. I think - this isn't my area.
This almost guarantees your "yes, but" doesn't apply for anyone using Fedora Linux, for example. I dare say nearly any distribution that includes systemd, and probably/consequently, 'tmp.mount'.
While it is memory backed, one can only copy/read from this as fast as the destination can write.
https://www.nongnu.org/atool/
Edit: just noticed it was mentioned in other reply, but as aunpack, a symlink to atool. I got used to the -x|-l|-a|... style and rarely remember the alternative names.
Unfortunately, its lead developer has recently posted[0] that he has to undergo what seems to be complicated, major eye surgery, and that he will probably be unable to continue development :(
[0]: https://old.reddit.com/r/PeaZip/comments/1bn7pu0/communicati...
https://gautiersblog.blogspot.com/2024/03/benchmarking-gener...
Off topic, but this is why many devs choose electron.
[0] https://github.com/cheat-engine/cheat-engine
[0]: https://wiki.freepascal.org/Basic_Pascal_Tutorial/Introducti...
[1]: https://castle-engine.io/modern_pascal
[2]: https://wiki.freepascal.org/Lazarus_videos
I remember back in my Pascal-loving days, especially after the .NET release of VB, looking at PeaZip+Lazarus and being inspired.
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[1] https://github.com/ybirader/pzip
Disclaimer: I’m the author
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I'm all for lean software but breaking ASLR by stripping the relocation tables, just to shave a few kilobytes off an executable which is primarily intended to parse untrusted files is just reckless.
> 7z ... should be placed in (peazip)/res/bin/7z, to manage 7Z files and most of the other supported formats
https://peazip.github.io/peazip-sources.html
I personally like libarchive and its bsdtar CLI, which also supports a wide range of formats. I don't know if there's any popular GUI frontend for it though.
https://libarchive.org
1. Command to unquarantine in docs is wrong. It should be `xattr -d com.apple.quarantine /Applications/peazip.app` not `xattr -dr com.apple.quarantine /Applications/peazip.app`
2. Not available via homebrew
3. Can't open issues, neither on Github nor sourceforge