How do I open the contents of the contents of a gz file?

I have a website backup in a gz file.

In Windows 7, I could penetrate this file without, I'm pretty sure, any add-on software. I think 7's compressed file tools opened the .gz file fine, and then each subfolder and its contents and subfolders was navigable.

In Windows 10, I had to install a zip utility - I picked 7zip - and that easily extracted the "contents" of the .gz file. But what I got was a 45 Mb file - not folder - just named with the contents of the archive. No extension. Just "yourarchive" (the name of the actual archive) as a file name. And 7zip can't do anything with this file. Even if I change the extension to zip.

I think in Windows 7, the gz file would extract to a compressed folder (so name but no extension), that could then be explored.

So my question is what do I do with this big file-not-folder (that is probably actually a folder) in Windows 10, so that I may explore it?

You may have to use the software that created the backup.

Ben

dalchina said:

If you wished, you could open the .gz file with 7-zip, create a new folder and extract it to that.


Whether you extract a file or files, or a folder containing files, depends on what's in the gz file.

As to how you view the file extracted- well, that depends on what it is.

That's exactly what I'm doing - and it's an intuitive process; done it lots of times before, although evidently never in Windows 10.

The extraction works fine, and then I'm with a folder, containing a single big file, with the name of my .gz archive.

And the big file is, if I remember from when I'd do it in Windows 7, actually a folder. In Windows 7 it would show up as a folder that could be explored/navigated.

Is there a way to modify the attributes of this big file, so that Windows treats it as a folder? That's what I'm thinking I need to solve my problem.

asus2016 said:

.... if I remember from when I'd do it in Windows 7... it would show up as a folder that could be explored/navigated

Then you must have had a 3rd-party extension installed. I've just tested it and Windows 7 cannot natively open a .gz file.