Windows “Send to Compressed (zipped) Folder [in different location]"

One easy solution is to install 7-zip (or some other third-party tool, but 7-zip in particular is well-maintained and free and supports regular zip files as well as other formats.)

And on installation be sure the option is checked to make it the default handler for zip which will make it the handler for that compress files function also. But what really makes this a good solution IMO is it includes several configurable context menu options, including one for compress to a folder in a set location.

Another more difficult option if you don't want to use 7zip might be to create a batch file to zip from the command line then move to the right location. Then add this bat file to the context menu manually.

Editing and updating based on comments

The built-in compression utility is called "windows compressed folders" and is run using a very limited-functionality "zipfldr.dll" that does not include such capability as-is via rundll32.exe. However, there does seem to be a vbscript interface for it.

Also I should add that if you are looking to distribute an application or something like that without requiring a user to download another app, another possibility would be to include 7zip's dll as part of your own package, with the caveat that you'd need to adhere to the same gpl for your app.

Neil Neyman

Posted 2013-09-22T06:24:23.490

Reputation: 246

Thanks for your answer Neil Neyman, however I already use 7-zip, and was just wanting to add a slight amount more functionality to the built-in options, for less-important compression operations, (unfortunately) without resorting to batch/scripting, which would also seemingly require download of a command line zip utlitity.

– user66001 – 2013-09-22T21:42:28.497

P.S Was not suggesting moving the full-stop outside the brackets (IMO - So it ends the sentence, and not just the contents of the brackets... The code monkey in me) was a grammar error, I left out mention of it as it was a very minor change :) I do wonder if it might be British English's rules, given my country of origin, however. – user66001 – 2013-09-22T21:42:59.200

@user66001 gotcha. That is exactly the issue! I actually meant 'that one' so I revised it to clarify. Tablet typing is a pain and outputs a lot of garbage sometimes.

– Neil Neyman – 2013-09-22T21:56:30.533

@user66001 I think you may be out of luck because that 0 byte file basically is like a shortcut. The compression utility uses zipfldr.dll and that particular built-in dll does not seem to have any additional functionality that would enable this. I did see some vbscript solutions on google. – Neil Neyman – 2013-09-22T22:35:36.880

Thanks for the link - Interesting. However, I do wonder if this is yet another seemingly subtle attempt made by Americans, to separate themselves from Britain, back when this country was founded (z's instead of s's; Date format; etc) :) – user66001 – 2013-09-23T05:31:58.477

Cool. Knowing about zipfldr.dll (How did you discover this was what was called?), allowed me to easily find http://stackoverflow.com/questions/30211/can-windows-built-in-zip-compression-be-scripted with VBA and VBS solutions. Still hoping someone with DLL hacking skills will see this thread sometime, however.

– user66001 – 2013-09-23T05:48:02.487

Windows “Send to Compressed (zipped) Folder [in different location]"

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