How does WinXP's "Send to Compressed (zipped) Folder" decide what to include in zip file?

Question

I'm not going to be too surprised if I get shot-down for asking a "non programming" question, but maybe somebody knows ...

I was zipping the contents of my subversion sandbox using WinXP's inbuilt "Send to Compressed (zipped) Folder" capability and was surprised to find that the .zip file created did not contain the .svn directories and their contents.

I had always assumed that all files were included and I can't locate which property/option/attribute controls inclusion or otherwise. Can anybody help?

Thanks, Tom

Answer 1

A compressed folder doesn't mean that it will be a .ZIP file, only the contents of the folder are compressed and to you it will look like a normal folder

Answer 2

It may not include files that you normally wouldn't see. Or, the files may be there, but you may be unable to see them when reopening the .zip file in explorer, because they are hidden. You may go into Tools->Folder Options, go to the View tab, and select the radio button to view hidden files and folders.

Answer 3

It looks like the Compressed Folder shell extension ignores directories (but not files) whose names begin with a dot, unless explicitly given as a parameter (i.e. selected for the Send To command).

It's hard to find out what else it excludes, as I can't even find out what the "compressed folder" sendto item is doing in the first place, without referring to 3rd party documentation.

Edit:

OK, the "Send to compressed folder" sendto shortcut has an extension of .ZFSendToTarget, which is handled by zipfldr.dll, which is doing all the work.

@Kibbee:
Mine does include hidden folders while zipping, though I do have "show hidden files" enabled.

Answer 4

Send to zipped Folder does not traverse into folders without names before dot (like ".svn"). If you had other folders that begin with dots, those would not be included either. Files without names are not excluded. Hidden attribute does not come into play.

Might be a bug, might be by design. Remember that Windows explorer does not allow creating folders beginning with dot, even though the underlying system can handle them.

Answer 5

"Send to --> Compressed (zipped) Folder" creates a zip file. What it puts in there is based on your settings. It does not include hidden files with the default settings. If you have your explorer view settings set as Kibbee mentioned to "Show hidden files and folders", then "Send to --> Compressed (zipped) Folder" will put the hidden files into the zip file.

There is what I would call a bug in XP where hidden folders aren't include when recursing a folder tree. You can get them if they are in the folder that you are in. Recursing works in Vista.

Files starting with "." have no special to windows except that Windows Explorer won't let you create one. It is a valid file name though.

I would recommend using something like 7-Zip if your folders contain hidden/system files/folders.

Answer 6

@Ishmaeel
Very interesting information. I never knew that. thanks!

Answer 7

So, isnt there a smart way to handle the problem? The real problem (show hidden files set to true. .svn folders are not compressed because windows does not consider them as valid folders) is still un-answered.

Thanks...

Answer 8

Finally, I found that there is no straight forward way to ZIP the .svn folders and hence I moved to winRAR instead. Alternativaly you can also use winZip.

Answer 9

The Windows 7 implementation of Send to Compressed Folder behaves differently - it does include files / folders beginning with a dot (e.g. ".SVN") in the zip file.