While I use a Mac for personal use (and ministry), I have a Windows desktop at work. For the most part, I have managed to get things working back and forth with little/no problem. However, there are still a few things that I much prefer on the OS X side of life. One of those things is zipping/unzipping files. Mac OS X is natively aware of .zip, .tar and .gzip files probably due to its Unix underpinnings (I love using that word).
At work, I recently obtained a large amount of data in .zip and .tar archives. While I was able to extract them with no problem on my Mac, the same has not been true on the Windows side. Windows does have a zip and extract capability built in. However, it does not always work and is limited in scope. So, the files I was able to extract on my laptop, I could not open on my desktop.
So, I looked around for Windows utilities. I quickly found two heavyweights: Winzip and PKZip. Now, I remember both from my other jobs as we used them before Windows had this capability built in. However, they are commercial and I did not want to pay for something that I get with Mac OS X built in. Another quick look and I located 7-Zip. Free, open source and capable of opening those all too common .gzip and .tar files from *nix operating systems.
I quickly downloaded and installed the software. Viola! In no time flat, I was able to open the previously archived files with no problem.
Morale of the story? When in doubt, trust others to have the same problem and (possibly) have an answer.
I love open source. It makes life bearable in a Windows world.
So far, the 7-Zip utility has worked well. The biggest problem I have had with the built-in Windows utility is the lack of support for *nix (and OS X) formats such as .tar and .gzip.