Various types of compression algorithms are used in almost all types of files used by computer programs. However, there are specialized applications (archivers) whose purpose is to further reduce the size of any file types. Components of the Windows operating system have built-in functions for working with compressed files of such programs, but their capabilities are limited.
Instructions
Step 1
If the compressed file is in zip format, then in the Windows operating system you can work with it as with a regular folder. Start the standard file manager of this OS - Explorer. There are many ways to do this, the simplest of which is to press the win and e keys at the same time. Navigate through the folder tree in the left frame of Explorer to the directory where the compressed file is stored - you will see it in the left frame along with regular folders, but with a different icon. Click this icon and in the right frame Explorer will display the contents of the compressed archive. Here you can view, copy and run files from the zip archive. If you need to have a larger selection of file operations, then move them to a regular folder.
Step 2
Other common formats of compressed files (for example, rar and 7-zip) cannot be processed by Windows on their own, so it is better to additionally install a universal archiver program. Find an application that can compress and extract files from archives of the most popular compression formats. For example, it can be a free 7-zip archiver (https://7-zip.org) or the very popular WINRar today (https://win-rar.ru).
Step 3
Use the Explorer context menu to compress and decompress files after installing the selected application - upon installation, each of these programs adds the necessary functions to the Explorer. To unpack the archive, as in the first step, you need to launch the file manager and go to the folder containing the compressed file. Then right-click it and select one of the file extraction commands. The wording of these points will depend on the selected program, but their meaning boils down to extracting compressed files into the current folder, into a folder that will be created by the archiver or specified by the user.
