5 ms·

This is a fairer interpretation, thanks. > be shown the door by Microsoft (where he worked) because he (inadvertently) wrote and released a piece of software t

by wdfx 3y ago

This is a fairer interpretation, thanks. > be shown the door by Microsoft (where he worked) because he (inadvertently) wrote and released a piece of software that competed with an upcoming Windows feature It's a shame though that the limitations in the shell integration were never worked out. This manifests itself in myself and probably countless others installing 7-zip as the first thing to install on any fresh windows installation simply because the built in zip support is sooo painfully slow.

Dalewyn 3y ago
>the limitations in the shell integration were never worked out. If I had to bet, I'd say it's deliberate. It's Windows code, it works, and it still works. God knows what will break if you change that hallowed code.
- TeMPOraL 3y ago
  They could buy out 7zip, shove it into Windows install, and make the existing UI point to 7zip API calls instead of explorer.exe ones. A drop-in shim, that would improve quality of life for millions.
  - skyyler 3y ago
    How would that increase revenue?
    - allannienhuis 3y ago
      By making a percentage of those people less likely to migrate to another platform. Of course it's a guessing game to try to put any numbers (amount or $ values) to any of that.
      - stackskipton 3y ago
        Who is going to migrate off Windows over ZIP performance? Microsoft doesn't care if you use 7Zip over built in, they got your money already.
        im3w1l 3y ago
        It's a small thing, but many small things can add up to one platform feeling nicer. Like personally I can't stand the Apple ecosystem, but I know many that prefer it these days.
  - anthk 3y ago
    7zip is libre software, they woudn't need too.
    - wongarsu 3y ago
      It's LGPL. If they kept to the existing interfaces they wouldn't need to, but honestly they aren't great. For someone like MS it's probably easier to buy either 7zip or WinRar out than to assure license conformity for the coming decades.
reactordev 3y ago
they actually do work, but only under powershell. There's also a tar.exe but I haven't managed to get a valid tarball out of it.
- DHowett 3y ago
  As the maintainer for Windows in-box bsdtar/libarchive, I'd love to learn more! How are the tarballs you get out of it invalid? Do you have a sample file I could take a look at? FWIW, since it is bsdtar it supports a few additional options[1] to control the format. You can pass --format=gnutar, --format=zip, --format=ustar, --format=7zip, ... for a bit more flexibility and to create archives in other formats. [1]: https://man.freebsd.org/cgi/man.cgi?query=bsdtar&sektion=1&format=html https://man.freebsd.org/cgi/man.cgi?query=bsdtar&sektion=1&f...
  - reactordev 3y ago
    I'm sure it was user error but `tar -czf` failed to produce a tarball I could untar on a server. Maybe due to it calling the wrong zip.exe? Maybe unzip on the server was using a different zlib or something? I'm not quite sure what it was but I decided to switch to using tar.xz for nix and zip for windows. I'll see if my old devops code history can produce a bad-state tarball and get back to you.

by wdfx 3y ago

Dalewyn 3y ago

>the limitations in the shell integration were never worked out. If I had to bet, I'd say it's deliberate. It's Windows code, it works, and it still works. God knows what will break if you change that hallowed code.

TeMPOraL 3y ago
They could buy out 7zip, shove it into Windows install, and make the existing UI point to 7zip API calls instead of explorer.exe ones. A drop-in shim, that would improve quality of life for millions.
- skyyler 3y ago
  How would that increase revenue?
  - allannienhuis 3y ago
    By making a percentage of those people less likely to migrate to another platform. Of course it's a guessing game to try to put any numbers (amount or $ values) to any of that.
    - stackskipton 3y ago
      Who is going to migrate off Windows over ZIP performance? Microsoft doesn't care if you use 7Zip over built in, they got your money already.
      - im3w1l 3y ago
        It's a small thing, but many small things can add up to one platform feeling nicer. Like personally I can't stand the Apple ecosystem, but I know many that prefer it these days.
- anthk 3y ago
  7zip is libre software, they woudn't need too.
  - wongarsu 3y ago
    It's LGPL. If they kept to the existing interfaces they wouldn't need to, but honestly they aren't great. For someone like MS it's probably easier to buy either 7zip or WinRar out than to assure license conformity for the coming decades.

reactordev 3y ago

they actually do work, but only under powershell. There's also a tar.exe but I haven't managed to get a valid tarball out of it.

DHowett 3y ago
As the maintainer for Windows in-box bsdtar/libarchive, I'd love to learn more! How are the tarballs you get out of it invalid? Do you have a sample file I could take a look at? FWIW, since it is bsdtar it supports a few additional options[1] to control the format. You can pass --format=gnutar, --format=zip, --format=ustar, --format=7zip, ... for a bit more flexibility and to create archives in other formats. [1]: https://man.freebsd.org/cgi/man.cgi?query=bsdtar&sektion=1&format=html https://man.freebsd.org/cgi/man.cgi?query=bsdtar&sektion=1&f...
- reactordev 3y ago
  I'm sure it was user error but `tar -czf` failed to produce a tarball I could untar on a server. Maybe due to it calling the wrong zip.exe? Maybe unzip on the server was using a different zlib or something? I'm not quite sure what it was but I decided to switch to using tar.xz for nix and zip for windows. I'll see if my old devops code history can produce a bad-state tarball and get back to you.