Windows 7: Zip to a different folder in Windows 7

Windows 7 lets you send a folder SomeFolder to a "compressed (zipped) folder" in the same location as SomeFolder. Is there a way to create the compressed folder at an arbitrary location of my choosing? For space reasons, I don't want to initially create the compressed folder at the same place SomeFolder.



I am using Windows 7 Professional 64-bit.

you could copy the somefolder to a location/drive with more space, then compress the copy then delete the copy keeping the newly compressed copy in the new location.

These are pretty big folder trees.....sigh, I guess there is no there way. Thanks, boohbah.

I would suggest downloading 7-Zip, it's free and configurable or a different 3rd party zip program if moving the files are too much hassle.

Not that I'm aware of with the built-in shortcut.
You may create the zip file (compressed folder) in the alternative location by hand, then copy all the files there, it's only an extra step more.

Anyway, I think the best is to use a real compression utility. 7-Zip is good and free, WinRar is very good too, but paid, and there are a couple more in between. All of them solve this kind of problem quite easily.

It's not really a lot of hassle, as I have to drag files to a disc burning project prior to burning anyway. However, that is virtual. It doesn't create as much churn actual high volume data movement on the HD. I have this superstitious preference to avoid massive movement of data on the HD when possible because, not only does it save time, but I want to slow down fragmentation. These days, however, that's probably misguided. Back in the day, HDs were tens of GBs and I had 10-15% free space. These days, I use a laughably miniscule portion of my HD.

Another superstition for avoiding excessive copying is that every copy carries with it some probability of error per bit. Error correction detects and/or corrects it sometimes, but with massive amounts of data, unnecessary transfers is just asking for trouble. Then again, this was back in the day. The further back I go in my memory, the less real it seemed. I remember when 100MB required tape, and you would count yourself lucky if it all transferred without error.

Oh, the baggage that we carry with us as we get old.

Thanks for the vote of confidence for 7-zip. It seems to be highly recommended. This time, I was able to get away without compression. I'm hoping that if I maintain my old school data stingy ways, I can get away without it for some time.