The .ZIP indexing filter for Windows 2000, 2003, XP and NT, supporting SharePoint, Exchange Server, Indexing Service and SQL Server . ZFilter is an installable filter that reads .ZIP archives, returning indexable text and value properties for full text indexing. ZFilter handles all ZIP archives created with WinZip, PKWare and DynaZip - any archive created using the PKWare compression format. ZIP files are archives used for distributing and storing files. ZIP files are often used to compress groups of files to save space, for example when sending emails. However, there is a problem when using indexing engines and .ZIP files. Most indexing engines will simply ignore .ZIP files and their contents, so the files carefully archived by your users will become invisible to people performing searches. This could leave a hole in your indexing product's searchable files. This 'hole' can be filled by using ZFilter on your indexing server. Most files available on ftp sites, bulletin boards and electronic services such as CompuServe are distributed as archives. Two benefits of using archives for electronic file distribution are that only one file transfer operation is required to obtain all related files, and file transfer time is minimized because the files in an archive are compressed. If you run a similar FTP site using .ZIP archives, you may want to include that content in an index, without having to maintain a separate "unzipped" site that can be trawled using normal filters. This is where ZFilter fits in. Some files are important but used infrequently. To save disk space or if space is running short on your indexing server, you may choose to create .ZIP archives of the content. ZFilter will allow that content to be searchable in the normal way, and using other filters you may have installed. Requires: Windows 2000 with SP1 or later, Windows NT4.0 with SP5 or later, SharePoint (Team Services, Windows SharePoint Services or Portal Server 2001/2003), Site Server 3.0 IIS4 and Index Server (from NT Option Pack) IIS5/IIS6 and Indexing Service Exchange Server 2000 or 2003 SQL Server 2000
home | about us | contact us
Products
Customers
Downloads
Purchase
Support
 ZFilter

ZFilter: the .ZIP indexing filter for Microsoft Windows servers.   ZFilter 1.0 was launched in July 2001: release 1.2 is now available, click here to see what's in this release.
Product Description
 
ZFilter is a plug-in indexing filter for Windows servers.  It enables them to full-text index the contents of .ZIP archives created with WinZip, PKZIP, or any other compression program that uses the PKWARE compression format.
 
Filters
 
SharePoint, Site Server, Exchange Server, SQL Server and Internet Information Server (using the Indexing Service) can read and index text and properties from Microsoft Office, HTML and plain text files.  Indexing of any other file type requires the installation of an appropriate filter: examples include Adobe's PDF IFilter, Microsoft's XML filter and the MP3 filter by Meticulus.  .ZIP files are no exception: for the server to index them, you need ZFilter.

ZFilter is compatible with all filters we have tried.  If a third party filter has been installed correctly, ZFilter uses it as needed to filter files extracted from .ZIP archives.
 
Uses for ZFilter
 
Indexing Web Sites - downloads such as large presentations or documents may be zipped to save space and minimize download times.  ZFilter allows Index Server to index these just like any other file.

Indexing Portal Content - SharePoint Portal Server and Site Server can crawl and index files on other servers over the Internet or an intranet, as well as indexing content stored in their own document libraries.   ZFilter allows them to index the contents of any .ZIP files they find.

Indexing Emails - many email users send large documents or other files as zipped attachments.   With Exchange Server 2000's full text indexing, ZFilter allows users to search for the contents of these files.
 
System  Requirements to run ZFilter
 
Operating Systems supported:
  • Windows XP
  • Windows 2000 Server or Workstation with SP1 or later
  • Windows Server 2003
  • Windows NT 4.0 Server with SP5 or later

Server Products supported:

  • SharePoint Portal Server 2001 or 2003
  • SharePoint Team Services or Windows SharePoint Services 2003
  • Internet Information Server (using Indexing Service/Index Server)
  • Exchange Server 2000 or 2003
  • SQL Server 2000
  • Site Server 3.0

©4-Share 2001, 2002, 2003