3 ms·

Being a windows user these days, I am getting kinda frustrated with how anemic everyone is at even trying to google for 20s to find the windows solution. 7zip

Being a windows user these days, I am getting kinda frustrated with how anemic everyone is at even trying to google for 20s to find the windows solution. 7zip is the program you want to handle most everything, with both gui and command line options: http://www.7-zip.org/ http://www.7-zip.org/ Given how radically MS is trying to reform itself to be an open-source friendly company and how ineffectually inoffensive they've been the last 5 years, can we at least try and throw them a bone or two?

justinmayer 11y ago
The article is not talking about Windows, so folks here aren't either. Why are you surprised that folks are uninterested in Windows? I've preferred Mac systems for longer than most of the HN crowd has been alive, so I understand what it's like to feel ignored and in the minority. For years, Mac users were treated as pariahs. The tables have turned, and as someone who has been in your situation, I should have great empathy for your predicament. And I do, but your tone in general -- and your last sentence in particular -- makes it very hard to empathize. Microsoft used its near-monopoly status to stifle innovation for years, and many of us have figurative scars that will never heal. You seem to think that they are making great strides (while I see them as half-hearted overtures), but either way I'm not about to "throw them a bone." Their decades of misdeeds, in my eyes, will not be expiated so easily. Perhaps Microsoft will someday be worthy of forgiveness, either from the perspective of morality (e.g., Mozilla) or product excellence (e.g., Apple). Until that day, Microsoft will continue to reap what they have sown, given no more attention than they have earned.
- KirinDave 11y ago
  > And I do, but your tone in general -- and your last sentence in particular -- makes it very hard to empathize. Microsoft used its near-monopoly status to stifle innovation for years, and many of us have figurative scars that will never heal. You seem to think that they are making great strides (while I see them as half-hearted overtures), but either way I'm not about to "throw them a bone." Their decades of misdeeds, in my eyes, will not be expiated so easily. I feel like Apple's has forgotten what was important, created then ruined a market, and lost everything that made it interesting (long before Steve Jobs passed away, by the way). Which cuts all the more deeply because back in the early 2ks they were walking the walk and taking a lot from NeXT's culture of developer friendliness. I grew up deeply invested in Macs and NeXT, which makes the realization painful, but... Apple wants to annihilate maker culture as it monetizes its platform. It's also stopped caring about design on a grand scale, instead appealing to very shallow notions of "visual simplicity". That's all gone now, and they're consequently useless to me. I'd rather patronize a company currently doing the right thing after a troubled past than pretend a previously aligned company was still there. It should be very telling that Apple AND Google's flagship hardware announcement of 2015 was something that Microsoft has been doing for years. And if Microsoft suddenly goes evil again? Fuck them, I'll drop them and move somewhere else. Not Linux, unless the distros pull their act together, but I'm sure a competitor will emerge. Or I'll make one.
  - justinmayer 11y ago
    You make some good points here, which I completely understand. Hopefully the future will bring better options for us all.
    - KirinDave 11y ago
      I know your feeling too, thanks for accepting I feel differently. And sometimes I ask myself "What the hell am I doing with this Surface book?" I won't pretend I don't have doubts. It's sort of a rough time for devs right now even as we enjoy unprecedented prosperity and recognition. Big businesses are attempting to monetize and control every aspect of developers.
- TheGrassyKnoll 11y ago
  "...decades of misdeeds..." Which they benefited handsomely from and were never sufficiently punished. I'm with you, my trust of MS is still pretty close to nil.
- cgriswald 11y ago
  GP seems to be talking about this line in the article: > Windows: ? (No idea, I haven't touched the platform in a while... should WORK!) I do think the author missed the ball in not doing basic research for the Windows platform. His point is that people should switch from one compression tool to another. If people on Windows were unable to compress or decompress such files, that would be a huge problem for his argument. That said, I don't agree with the GP's tangent.
Yaggo 11y ago
How about Microsoft offering basic utility software with their OS releases, e.g. curl/ssh/awk/grep/sed/tar etc.
- KirinDave 11y ago
  They do, although that doesn't include tar. Powershell does all of that.
  - Yaggo 11y ago
    Powershell is very capable tool but unfortunately not very interoperable.
    - KirinDave 11y ago
      What do you mean? It seems to me like an extremely interoperable tool, as it can invoke arbitrary .net code.
      - Yaggo 11y ago
        ... not very interoperable outside MS/Windows ecosystem.
        KirinDave 11y ago
        It can invoke arbitrary executables as well, which makes it exactly as interoperable as Bash. Powershell can run on Linux, too. I've even met a few people who quietly prefer it. So what, exactly, were you referring to? Shell choices are like editor choices: arbitrary and largely equivalent and without any real meaning or impact on a developer's productivity.
        Yaggo 11y ago
        The context was: someone had difficulties to find "tar -xf" equivalent for Windows. I pointed out that it would be nice if Microsoft included tar etc. basic utilities in their OS releases. With out-of-the-box Windows machine, you cannot ssh, you cannot untar, etc. Windows-way of doing things is totally different than *nix culture (OS X, Linux, etc). In that context powershell is not "interoperable" (maybe bad wording from me).
mahouse 11y ago
I have had awful experiences with 7-zip. Recently I was unable to decompress a multi-file rar, it kept saying it was corrupted. I downloaded it several times until I realised it was actually fine, because winrar could decompress it.
- KirinDave 11y ago
  I sorta view RAR files as the problem. Only WinRAR ever gets them really right. I dunno why that is, but I also dunno why anyone keeps using RAR. It's something of a joke in the windows dev community.
  - mahouse 11y ago
    Don't you have to seek through the entire tar file to find a file? You see, that is a joke.
dTal 11y ago
I really don't see what that has to do with Microsoft. 7-zip is GPL and cross platform. In fact - I just checked - a command line 7-zip is available by default on my Linux Mint install.
- KirinDave 11y ago
  Right, but an xz-supporting compression tool is shipped with many Linux distros, whereas you do need to grab a tool to support xz on any version of Windows. But you're right, 7z is an under-appreciated format.

justinmayer 11y ago

The article is not talking about Windows, so folks here aren't either. Why are you surprised that folks are uninterested in Windows? I've preferred Mac systems for longer than most of the HN crowd has been alive, so I understand what it's like to feel ignored and in the minority. For years, Mac users were treated as pariahs. The tables have turned, and as someone who has been in your situation, I should have great empathy for your predicament. And I do, but your tone in general -- and your last sentence in particular -- makes it very hard to empathize. Microsoft used its near-monopoly status to stifle innovation for years, and many of us have figurative scars that will never heal. You seem to think that they are making great strides (while I see them as half-hearted overtures), but either way I'm not about to "throw them a bone." Their decades of misdeeds, in my eyes, will not be expiated so easily. Perhaps Microsoft will someday be worthy of forgiveness, either from the perspective of morality (e.g., Mozilla) or product excellence (e.g., Apple). Until that day, Microsoft will continue to reap what they have sown, given no more attention than they have earned.

KirinDave 11y ago
> And I do, but your tone in general -- and your last sentence in particular -- makes it very hard to empathize. Microsoft used its near-monopoly status to stifle innovation for years, and many of us have figurative scars that will never heal. You seem to think that they are making great strides (while I see them as half-hearted overtures), but either way I'm not about to "throw them a bone." Their decades of misdeeds, in my eyes, will not be expiated so easily. I feel like Apple's has forgotten what was important, created then ruined a market, and lost everything that made it interesting (long before Steve Jobs passed away, by the way). Which cuts all the more deeply because back in the early 2ks they were walking the walk and taking a lot from NeXT's culture of developer friendliness. I grew up deeply invested in Macs and NeXT, which makes the realization painful, but... Apple wants to annihilate maker culture as it monetizes its platform. It's also stopped caring about design on a grand scale, instead appealing to very shallow notions of "visual simplicity". That's all gone now, and they're consequently useless to me. I'd rather patronize a company currently doing the right thing after a troubled past than pretend a previously aligned company was still there. It should be very telling that Apple AND Google's flagship hardware announcement of 2015 was something that Microsoft has been doing for years. And if Microsoft suddenly goes evil again? Fuck them, I'll drop them and move somewhere else. Not Linux, unless the distros pull their act together, but I'm sure a competitor will emerge. Or I'll make one.
- justinmayer 11y ago
  You make some good points here, which I completely understand. Hopefully the future will bring better options for us all.
  - KirinDave 11y ago
    I know your feeling too, thanks for accepting I feel differently. And sometimes I ask myself "What the hell am I doing with this Surface book?" I won't pretend I don't have doubts. It's sort of a rough time for devs right now even as we enjoy unprecedented prosperity and recognition. Big businesses are attempting to monetize and control every aspect of developers.
TheGrassyKnoll 11y ago
"...decades of misdeeds..." Which they benefited handsomely from and were never sufficiently punished. I'm with you, my trust of MS is still pretty close to nil.
cgriswald 11y ago
GP seems to be talking about this line in the article: > Windows: ? (No idea, I haven't touched the platform in a while... should WORK!) I do think the author missed the ball in not doing basic research for the Windows platform. His point is that people should switch from one compression tool to another. If people on Windows were unable to compress or decompress such files, that would be a huge problem for his argument. That said, I don't agree with the GP's tangent.

Yaggo 11y ago

How about Microsoft offering basic utility software with their OS releases, e.g. curl/ssh/awk/grep/sed/tar etc.

KirinDave 11y ago
They do, although that doesn't include tar. Powershell does all of that.
- Yaggo 11y ago
  Powershell is very capable tool but unfortunately not very interoperable.
  - KirinDave 11y ago
    What do you mean? It seems to me like an extremely interoperable tool, as it can invoke arbitrary .net code.
    - Yaggo 11y ago
      ... not very interoperable outside MS/Windows ecosystem.
      - KirinDave 11y ago
        It can invoke arbitrary executables as well, which makes it exactly as interoperable as Bash. Powershell can run on Linux, too. I've even met a few people who quietly prefer it. So what, exactly, were you referring to? Shell choices are like editor choices: arbitrary and largely equivalent and without any real meaning or impact on a developer's productivity.
        Yaggo 11y ago
        The context was: someone had difficulties to find "tar -xf" equivalent for Windows. I pointed out that it would be nice if Microsoft included tar etc. basic utilities in their OS releases. With out-of-the-box Windows machine, you cannot ssh, you cannot untar, etc. Windows-way of doing things is totally different than *nix culture (OS X, Linux, etc). In that context powershell is not "interoperable" (maybe bad wording from me).

mahouse 11y ago

I have had awful experiences with 7-zip. Recently I was unable to decompress a multi-file rar, it kept saying it was corrupted. I downloaded it several times until I realised it was actually fine, because winrar could decompress it.

KirinDave 11y ago
I sorta view RAR files as the problem. Only WinRAR ever gets them really right. I dunno why that is, but I also dunno why anyone keeps using RAR. It's something of a joke in the windows dev community.
- mahouse 11y ago
  Don't you have to seek through the entire tar file to find a file? You see, that is a joke.

dTal 11y ago

I really don't see what that has to do with Microsoft. 7-zip is GPL and cross platform. In fact - I just checked - a command line 7-zip is available by default on my Linux Mint install.

KirinDave 11y ago
Right, but an xz-supporting compression tool is shipped with many Linux distros, whereas you do need to grab a tool to support xz on any version of Windows. But you're right, 7z is an under-appreciated format.