Why doesn't Windows have a command-line zip command?

Question

Windows has a built-in "zip" program for archiving and un-archiving files. It comes with every installation of Windows, and is even integrated with the Windows Explorer GUI.

Why is there no command-line hook for this, like there is on Linux? This seems like such a large and basic oversight.

(I am aware of 3rd party tools, I am not interested in them)

Solution

Why is there no command-line hook for this, like there is on Linux?

There actually is a PowerShell command you can use. You would simply do the following command to compress a file.

Compress-Archive -LiteralPath 'C:\Users\User\Desktop\Example\Test FIle.txt' -DestinationPath "C:\Users\User\Desktop\Example\Test.zip"

You would simply do the following command to uncompress that same archive.

Expand-Archive -LiteralPath "C:\Users\User\Desktop\Example\Test.Zip" -DestinationPath "C:\Users\User\Desktop\Example" -Force

Sources:

• Compress-Archive

• Expand-Archive

(I am aware of 3rd party tools, I am not interested in them

PowerShell is built into all modern versions of Windows. In this case the commands I am suggesting require PowerShell 5.0+

Comments

[Thomas Dickey]

The same program that's used on Linux is also available for Windows (info-zip is not part of Linux).

[Moab]

See this....serverfault.com/questions/39071/…

[phuclv]

as for the reason why, just Microsoft can answer. But there are a lot of ways that you can create a zip archive from command line, even without PowerShell. Cross-site duplicate: creating batch script to unzip a file without additional zip tools

[cowlinator]

This is a great answer! You should also post this answer on serverfault.com/questions/39071/…

[Ramhound]

@cowlinator - Why would I submit a question on a different community? I am a member of this community? This question was within scope here at Super User. Besides, somebody already suggested PowerShell, as an answer to that question. I don't submit a duplicate answer to a question, nor do I submit the same answer, to multiple communities.

[cowlinator]

That powershell answer is a lengthy powershell script. Don't worry about it, I will answer it then.