Forum Discussion

johnmsch's avatar
johnmsch
Copper Contributor
Nov 17, 2023

Compress-Archive Not Working?

I'm running Powershell version 5.1.17763.4974 on a server with Windows Server 2019 Datacenter v10. Been using PS for years but trying Compress-Archive for the first time. Tried building a script wh...
Compress-Archive
johnmsch's avatar
johnmsch
Copper Contributor
Nov 17, 2023

Thank you LainRobertson 

I had read through that article and completely missed the obvious answer:
This: Compress-Archive -Path 'D:\abc\' -DestinationPath 'D:\xyz\abc.zip'
Instead of this: Compress-Archive -Path 'D:\abc\*.*' -DestinationPath 'D:\xyz\abc.zip'

Is working perfectly.
In fact, the folder D:\abc is indeed empty, but there are multiple folders on the next level.

 

If I may, I have two more questions.
I believe I read somewhere that using this compression method is limited to 2gb file sizes?
Is there a way to remove files from a compressed file leaving everything else in tact?

Thanks again for your quick answer and that excellent article!

 

LainRobertson's avatar
LainRobertson
Silver Contributor
Nov 17, 2023

johnmsch 

 

Hey, John.

 

Yes, you certainly can manipulate an archive, however, you have to do so from .NET. Here's a very basic example, which you can easily extend as it's a pretty simple set of classes to work with.

 

Example

# Add the required .NET library reference.
Add-Type -AssemblyName "System.IO.Compression.FileSystem";

# Open the Zip file.
$Archive = [System.IO.Compression.ZipFile]::Open("<full path to your Zip file>", [System.IO.Compression.ZipArchiveMode]::Update);

# Delete the first entry.
$Archive.Entries[0].Delete();

# Finish up properly by disposing the $Archive object.
$Archive.Dispose();

 

In a real-world context, you'd most likely enumerate the Entries collection and make smarter decisions based on file size, type, etc.

 

References

 

Cheers,

Lain

  • johnmsch's avatar
    johnmsch
    Copper Contributor
    Nov 18, 2023

    Thanks again for all you help LainRobertson 

    Hope you have a wonderful weekend!

Resources