Windows Compression?

[jasonp45]

I want to programmatically compress files to prep them for FTP; I'm using VB6. I've noticed that Windows ME has built-in zip-compatible file compression, so I'm assuming there's some DLL I can reference that will allow me to do this.

I can compress right now with command-line WinZip, but I'm going to be distributing a program for intra-office use and a lot of the users don't have WinZip. Does anyone know of any Microsoft/Windows/VB object that will allow me to compress a file???

Thanks!

 

[Guest_imported]

You are not very clear. Will you be distributing a compressed executable or datafiles? Will users read the datafiles with your software? If yes you can include your own decompression software. (the best compression rate I ever got for free was a program called bzip (orig Linux, but also for Windows). What is the minimum OS your users have? Win98? No built-in Zip there!
If you want to compress the executable, try making it into a MSI file.

 

[AdaHacker]

Rather than WinZip, you could always just include the shareware version of pkzip with your program. It runs as a stand-alone DOS executable, so there are no compatibility worries and no need for any installing. Just copy it to the hard drive and start zipping things. Yeah, I know it's not the nicest way to do it, but it's probably the fastest, cheapest, and easiest.

 

[scarfhead]

Check out

http://www.vbaccelerator.com/codelib/zip/zip.htm

It has a VB library that's pretty easy to program so you can do your own zip and unzip. Comes complete with samples.

scarfhead