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What file formats of compressed archives does Windows 10 natively know how to work with on fresh install?

There are many file formats for compressed archives. To name a few:

  1. .tar.gz
  2. .zip
  3. .rar
  4. .7z
  5. etc

But I'm especially curious what is the subset of these various "compressed archive" file formats that Microsoft Windows natively knows how to decompress out-of-the-box after a fresh install of the OS -- without having to install additional software.

Which compressed archive file formats does Windows 10 know about on fresh install?

Michael Altfield
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3 Answers3

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More formats native to Windows OS across various versions.

Regarding ISO, you can create them with DISM and double-click to mount as a drive in Win10.
Regarding CAB, you use extrac32.exe and makecab.exe
I believe it's the expand command that decompressed files with extensions ending with an underscore. (sample.ex_ and another.dl_) This type of compressed file were part of application installers before MSI format.

Windows Server Role, File Server Resource Manager recognized these extensions as compressed archives. You could use its file-type classifications with management rules. Even though you needed the third-party apps to actually open/create most of them. Microsoft recognized them as popular formats
ace, arc, arj, bhx, bz2, cab, gz, gzip, hpk, hqx, jar, lha, lzh, lzx, pak, pit, rar, sea, sit, sqz, tgz, uu, uue, z, zip, zoo

NTBackup created and extracted archive files. It's own file format. (I don't know if you can still add that feature to currently supported Windows 10, I think it was deprecated a couple years ago.

Windows Disk Management and Explorer now support mounting Microsoft disk images .VHD and .VHDX used by its Hyper-V and Windows Backup.

Protocol
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Windows 10 knows only about ZIP archive files; it can create them, and open them. It can't create encrypted ZIP files; it can open them if and only if encrypted using very insecure ZipCrypto encryption (not the default with 3rd-party archivers such as WinRAR and 7-Zip, but can usually be selected as an option). The only way to send a user of native Windows without 3rd-party archiver support an encrypted file is to risk ZipCrypto. (A self-extracting file using any format will work, but email usually objects to executables.) This for Windows 10, last tried in 2021; later versions may extend support.

pol098
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Without third party software:

From the graphical interface:

zip and cab

Windows used to be able to create zip files with a password but they removed that hability and now you can only create zip files without a password. Cab files is often used to store windows system files and they are not meant to be used by users.

From the command line: (using tar.exe):

According to wikipedia: tar, pax, cpio, zip, rar, ar, xar, rpm and ISO

I also tested it successfully with 7z but only if not encrypted...

Since Windows 10 build 17063 they added a command line tool called tar.exe which allows to manage compressed files but only form the command line.

Ricardo Bohner
  • 5,221