#671 Working Directory options don't work

[Anonymous]

Changing the working directory options in Options->Plugins->7-Zip->Folders doesn't change where 7zip puts the temporary files. They continue to go to the windows temp folder even when other options are selected. Due to space limitations on my c:\ drive, this prevents me from opening large files.

Other (possibly) useful information:
I was working with tgz files. I tried using both the "current" and "specified" settings and got the same result: "drive out of space" even though I was working on a drive with plenty of room.

[thor918]

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I second that, I'm using 4.47 beta, and this thing hinders me to extraxt big files!

[thor918]

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Hmm. it seems that this happens only when I drag and drop the file to extraxt.
if I use Pack out... menu the setting seems to be honored!

[thor918]

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one thing I noticed was that if you open the compressed archive and then extract trough the menu system in the gui program, no temporary files are created!

[Jaan Vajakas]

I have the same problem: no matter what options I choose in the Folders tab in the Options dialog, when dragging files from a ZIP archive to the desktop or a folder in Windows Explorer, 7-Zip always first extracts the files to a temporary location and then copies them to the destination.

In addition to causing trouble with large files, this can also make the extraction nearly two times slower in case the archive consists of many small files.

As pointed out by thor918, this is also inconsistent with the behavior of the Extract button in 7-Zip, since the latter extracts files straight to the destination folder. Can this bug be fixed or is it a curiosity of Windows Explorer?

I am using 7-Zip 9.07-beta on Windows 2000.

[ooofest]

I'll add my $0.02:

The "Current" work folder setting works as expected when I extract directly from the 7-Zip context menu on selected files in a Windows Explorer (or similar) file management window under Windows XP.

Within the 7-Zip File Manager window, anything extracted uses the Windows TEMP directory.

The latter should also use the "current" directory as determined by location of the file being extracted within the 7-Zip File Manager, I feel.

[liran]

Same here. When for example I have a 7Z file, with a .DOC file in it, and I open it with 7-ZIP, then I double-click the .DOC - it creates the temp file in the Windows temp dir, no matter what I define in the working directory.
Please fix it ?

[Igor Pavlov]

That option specifies the path for temp archives for update operations.
For other things 7-Zip uses system's default temp folder.

[liran]

But this option can be useful for defining for my example operation too.

[David McDivitt]

This needs to be resolved. Windows has a 240 or 255 character limit to paths. using the default temp folder ends up making paths too long and sometimes 7-zip fails. Using the extract function works OK because the temp folder isn't used, but dragging and dropping out of the zip file often times crashes because it goes first to the temp folder, then copies. If a value is assigned for the working directory it should always be used.

[Shon Vaughan]

Abandoning use of 7-zip because of this bug. As of today, I can't unZIP anything because so many apps insist on filling up my C drive (an SSD) so that it is now full. I found an alternate utility app that honors the setting of where to work from. Thirteen years of blowing off this bug convinces me that development on 7-zip is no longer viable.

[Geralt Bauer]

I'll stop using 7-Zip as well, I'm using the stable Version and this problem is still there. The workaround from "thor918" from 2007 still works.. this gotta be a joke.
I was just unpacking a 200GB archive, in advance I set the working folder to somewhere else. And it failed halfway after 1hr and also this is really hurting SSDs as of today most people are using SSDs as their Windows drive..
I don't understand why unpacking on a different drive is done in drive C: in the first place, only logical reason would be if there is not enough space, but even on C: it doesn't even check if there is enough free space, not even a warning.

From now on I will use 7-Zip only for packing. I don't have high hopes that this is fixed in current alpha, correct me if I'm wrong.

[Joe]

I think I will also be leaving 7Zip for something else.
I'm trying to extract a file that needs more temporary space than my C drive (an SSD) can spare and because there's no way to change the temporary directory (as pointed out by Igor in 2011!!!), 7Zip will only use the default temp folder on the C drive, causing file name length and file size errors constantly.

This bug is easily fixable but I don't personally have the time to address it so I'm hoping it will be addressed in the near future so I can continue to use 7Zip for the features I like without this simple boundary in place.

[Nefasto Brasil]

I think this is a software development decision that may involve not messing with system files. As I understand, 7-zip can run without admin rights so I imagine that to change this behavior (windows user here) would mean starting it as admin every time which may not be desirable in most instances.
From my perspective, the solution was simple. I changed the default "Temp" and "TMP" under windows system variables to point to the folder I wanted it to use. I too have a small SSD drive for my OS but have plenty of spare space in the other drives.
To conclude, two things here that we could all improve on: 1) Listen to your target audience. If someone has spend the time to write to you is because they like and/or use your product so informing of the correct solution from the start would have been a friendlier approach to this issue. 2) If you rely solely on one source of information, it is very likely that you will miss finding other angles and therefore not find other ways to resolve your problem. Thinking from different perspectives can help you find a solution that suits you best. =)

[Nazim]

The for this problem is provided here
https://sourceforge.net/p/sevenzip/discussion/45797/thread/55bd794c/#4558

Basically you can use "current directory" if you use the two window view in 7zip and transfer between them instead of using the windows drag and drop functionality. It seems to be a limitation that when you use the drag and drop option 7zip will only use the temp directory.