PKZIP

  • Thread starter Thread starter amalik
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amalik

Hello

We have PKZIP 2.04 version installed. The command that works is
pkzip.exe sample.zip *.pdf
the one that doesn't work is
pkzip.exe sample.zip abc.pdf xyz.pdf
Can anyone please suggest why my second command isn't working?

thanks
anna
 
Hello

We have PKZIP 2.04 version installed. The command that works is
pkzip.exe sample.zip *.pdf
the one that doesn't work is
pkzip.exe sample.zip abc.pdf xyz.pdf
Can anyone please suggest why my second command isn't working?
Click to expand...

Hello Anna,

pkzip 2.04 is from 1993. It cannot handle long filenames.
Did you check this?

Reinhardt
 
As Reinhard stated, PKZIP 2.04 is quite old. The latest version of
PKZIP for DOS is 2.50, released in 1999. (Yes, some people still use
DOS 6.x for business computers.. ;-)) The latest version for Windows
is 9.x something.

To answer your question.. Because of the way DOS (including the
various command processors, COMMAND.COM and CMD.EXE, what many people
call a "DOS box" under Win32 OS's) works, the "*.pdf" is not being
expanded by the command processor. Rather, it is being expanded by a
code stub inside the pkzip.exe executable. Because of this, that old
(legacy) code may have some bugs which cause it to fail under newer
OS's.

Your best bet is to upgrade PKZIP to a newer version; get WinZip,
PKZip for Windows, or one of the freeware ZIP managers, such as
Info-Zip (do a google search for it ;-)); or read the PKZIP docs to
learn how to use @<listfile> include/exclude files. For example, the
first command, below, outputs the directory listing of all *.pdf's
into a file called "PDFList.txt", which you can then edit before
passing on to PKZIP.

dir /b *.pdf > PDFList.txt
pkzip.exe MyPDFs.zip @PDFList.txt

If this still does not work.. Well, PKZIP 2.04 is so old, it is
unlikely you will find much other help. Time to upgrade! (I believe
Info-Zip works under DOS 5.x and higher, as well as any Windows
version command processors. But do not quote me on that..)

Good luck.
 
Thanks for the recommendation and suggestions. But I am not really in a
position to upgrade. I figured that PKZIP not only like long file names
it also, doesnt like long paths. Workaround was to create a temp folder
and create the zip file in the temp folder. Move it to the requested
folder and delete the temp folder
 
I have been running PKZip since ver 1x and ended with 2.5 which has been
run on all boxes up to and including W2k with no problems other than the
length of the path. Like you I just do the work in a higher level
folder and relocate it to where I want it located. As long as it works
I will likely continue using it.

James
 
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