Windows NT Does Not Support TAR or COMPRESS for FTP Transfers

 Last reviewed: April 4, 1997
Article ID: Q104491

The information in this article applies to:
  • Microsoft Windows NT operating system version 3.1
  • Microsoft Windows NT Advanced Server version 3.1
  • Microsoft Windows NT Server version 4.0
  • Microsoft Windows NT Workstation version 4.0

If you download files with FTP from a UNIX or Internet server, the files may be in tape archive (TAR) format, which is a storage method that saves disk space. These files will not be usable unless they are restored to their native format.

Both TAR and COMPRESS are standard utilities for concatenating files and compressing files for storage on UNIX systems. They also provide the facilities to restore files to their native format.

Windows NT does not include either the TAR or Compress utilities; however, they are available through several sources including several different anonymous FTP sites on the Internet.

TAR files can be processed using the PAX command that ships with Windows NT.

NOTE: You cannot use PKUNZIP to uncompress a file compressed by the UNIX COMPRESS utility.

Additional query words: prodnt
Keywords : kbnetwork NTSrvWkst nttcp
Version : 3.1 4.0
Platform : WINDOWS

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Last reviewed: April 4, 1997
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