How do I open a TGZ file?

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2009-10-21, 04:20 AM
sgoodman

How do I open a TGZ file?

Greetings,

I just downloaded a TGZ file, but Windows Vista won't open it. Do I have to download an extractor program? Does anyone have any recommendations?

Thanks,
Shane.
Windows Vista Home Premium
2009-10-21, 04:57 AM
Zath

Quote:

Originally Posted by sgoodman

Greetings,

I just downloaded a TGZ file, but Windows Vista won't open it. Do I have to download an extractor program? Does anyone have any recommendations?

Thanks,
Shane.
Windows Vista Home Premium

Have a trawl around this site.
It's an older compression format.
2009-10-21, 09:04 AM
jeremya

7-zip is a good open source tool for this.

7-Zip
2009-10-21, 09:34 AM
nickh

I'll second the recommendation for 7-zip on Windows.

.tgz a shorter form of .tar.gz , and is actually the result of 2 processes: archiving (tar) and compression (gz).

"gz" is short for "GZip", which is a fast compression algorithm that is extremely widely used.

"tar" is a file format for archiving: it rolls multiple files into a single file, but doesn't compress the files. That's why .tar.gz / .tgz files are quite common: tar is useful for combining many files into one, and gzip is useful for compressing them.
2009-11-06, 03:37 AM
sgoodman

I Downloaded 7-Zip

I've downloaded 7-Zip and it's worked well.

The last time I've had to use an extractor, I bought WinZip, but I wasn't in the mood to spend $30 for something I would only use once.

Thanks,
Shane.
2009-11-06, 10:00 AM
nickh

Yeah, WinZip's an old and crusty product. Considering all of the free and open-source alternatives that are available, I don't know how WinZip is still in business.

I also don't understand why Windows doesn't natively support common compression or archive formats such as tar, gzip, bzip, rar, etc. What a failure on Microsoft's part.