Zipping and Packing Files, File and Folder Security

Zipping and Packing Files

In the 1980s, as computer networking and sharing files through bulletin board systems became popular, it became important to make files as small as possible because transmission speeds in those days were slower than a snail’s pace compared to today’s speeds. (Of course, back then we thought 1200bps was blazing speed!)

Today we still send files back and forth through email, and computer server bandwidth has trouble handling it all, so compressing files to their minimum size is as relevant now as it was years ago. In fact, it’s become so relevant that Microsoft included built-in compression technology beginning with Windows XP, and compression technology is also included in Windows 7.

One of the most popular compression systems in the 1980s and 1990s was PKZip. Like Xerox and Google, whose brand names became synonymous with the products they perfected, compressing files soon became known as zipping. Today Windows 7 still refers to compressed files as zipped files.

Here’s how you compress one or more files:

The compressed file appears in the same directory and takes on the name of the file you right-clicked in the compression process, as shown in Figure 1. Windows 7 selects the compressed file after you create it and highlights the filename so you can delete it and give the compressed file its own name.

Figure 1. A compressed, or zipped, file.

After you compress the file, you can extract files by right-clicking the compressed file and then clicking Extract All. A dialog box appears and allows you to select a destination folder for the extracted files.

Note

File and Folder Security

File and folder security is a necessary part of computing, especially in these days of always-on networking and multiple users and networks interacting with your computer. Therefore, security is an integral part of Windows 7.

As Windows NT was developed in the 1990s, Microsoft realized that the standard File Allocation Table (FAT) file system could not provide security features users would need, including permissions and editing to restrict user access to specific files. In response, Microsoft developed the NTFS file system. Today Microsoft recommends that computer users running Windows format their hard disks in NTFS primarily because NTFS-formatted files and folders provide better security.

You can access, view, and change security settings for folders and individual files. Here’s how:

1.	Right-click the file or folder.
2.	Click Properties in the menu.
3.	Click the Security tab. Figure 2 shows the Security tabs for a folder and a file, respectively. Figure 2. Windows offers different security options for folders and files.

As you can see, there are only minor differences between the Security tab for a folder and the Security tab for a file. You can view the permissions for each group or username by clicking the group or username in the Group or User Names list. Change permissions for the selected group or user by clicking Edit. If you need to set special permissions or advanced settings, click Advanced.