The RemoteZip component is not specifically designed for use under the Microsoft .NET Framework. It is a standard COM DLL, and so will require you to run any managed code application or ASP.NET page that uses it in "compatibility" mode (i.e. include AspCompat="true" in the <%@Page ... %> directive). Alternatively you can use the .NET TLBIMP utility to create a managed code wrapper for the component. However, please note that we cannot provide support for issues that arise in conjunction with using the component within a .NET application.

A fault in the version 1.0 build of RemoteZip can cause the application to fail with the message 'Object doesn't support this property or method' in line 17 when you change from one directory to another in the list of available directories. This occurs when the list of drives is empty. The usual cause is that the server that RemoteZip is running on has mapped network drives set up. Disconnecting these will cure the fault in most circumstances.

This fault has been corrected in version 1.10 (Evaluation version) and 1.11 (Full version). See Obtaining the latest version for more details. Note that RemoteZip cannot zip or unzip files that are stored on remote networked drives, however.

If the drive lists are still empty, it is likely that you have not provided sufficient permissions for RemoteZip to access the drives to create the list. You must give the account that is using RemoteZip at least Read permission for the root of all the drives on the server.

If you are having problems with RemoteZip, you should check the component version numbers and include these with your inquiry. The component files are stnrmzip.dll, lspzipx.dll and lspuzipx.dll. They are all installed by default in your Winnt\System32 folder.

The version numbers of lspzipx.dll and lspuzipx.dll are shown at the bottom of the RemoteZip start-up page, as ZIP Vx.xxx and UNZIP Vx.xxx. To check the version number of the file stnrmzip.dll:

• Open the Winnt\System32 folder and select the file stnrmzip.dll.
• Right-click on it, select Properties, and open the Version page.
• The version number is shown at the top of this page, in the format xx.xxxx

The compression DLLs and the main RemoteZip DLL are updated from time to time, either to fix minor errors, add functionality, or improve performance. You can download the latest version of each of the three components from here and use them to update your installation:

• Evaluation version of stnrmzip.dll (version 1.10)
• Zip compression DLL lspzipx.dll (version 2.509)
• Unzip compression DLL lspuzipx.dll (version 2.509)

You should verify that the updated files are suitable for your own purposes by testing them on a non-production server first. See the previous topic for help on determining the version number of the components on your system. See the next topic for help on updating or replacing existing component files.

Windows NT and the Web server cache the components they use in memory, and lock them so that they cannot be moved or deleted while in use. In some cases stopping and restarting the Web server may release the component. Otherwise restarting Windows or rebooting the server will do the trick.

If you are using Internet Information Server 4 or higher, you can create Virtual Applications and place all your ASP pages that use the component inside this folder to avoid this problem. It's then possible to unload a component from memory using the Properties dialog of the Virtual Application folder in Internet Service Manager. However, this technique may affect performance with RemoteZip due to the number concurrent accesses required to the component, and threading issues may make this impractical.

Opening up your server to the network with RemoteZip gives users the ability to create, delete, move and otherwise access the files on the server and on any mapped drives on other machines. This, after all, is what you require to be able to carry out the zip and unzip operations. However, you can secure your system using both Windows own security systems, and with the RemoteZip Configuration Manager utility, which is automatically installed with RemoteZip. Using this, you can prevent all zip or unzip access, or just single operations such as deleting files, moving files, using encryption, etc. You can also use it to specify the full or partial file paths and filenames that are acceptable.

RemoteZip accesses your server's disks using a Windows account, in the same way as the Web server does normally. Therefore, you can also control access through the Permissions you set on files and directories using Windows NT Explorer, and through the IIS Basic or Challenge/Response authentication methods.

The most common cause of this error is that the source file specification you selected in the 'Source files' section of the RemoteZip page does not match any existing files. It also occurs when you select the 'Update and Add' or 'Freshen' option, and there are no newer files to add to the zip file.

RemoteZip requires appropriate disk access permissions to be able to create the zip files, and to restore (extract) files from a zip file. If you encounter the 'Create File Error' message, you will need to edit the Permissions list in the Properties dialog for the directories you wish to use with RemoteZip. Give the account that will use the component Write or Full Control permission. If the component is being accessed anonymously, the account in use will be either IUSR_machinename or IWAM_machinename depending on whether you have installed the component as a Virtual Application in Internet Service Manager.

The RemoteZip compression DLLs are only designed to carry out one zip operation and/or unzip operation at a time. If two or more users access them concurrently the last one will automatically be queued, and will see a message to that effect. If the current operation takes longer than the standard 'wait-for' period of 30 seconds, the process fails with an error message.

There is also a 'time-out' for all operations to prevent long-running or failed processes from stalling the system. This is set to 300 seconds by default, but both this and the 'wait-for' period can be changed using the RemoteZip Configuration Manager utility, which is automatically installed with RemoteZip.

• Make sure you are using Server.CreateObject() in your ASP pages. CreateObject() alone should only be used in Visual Basic.
• If you are running the object in a separate process in IIS4, it may be that MTS has become confused and is holding an invalid object pointer. Try unloading the object using the Properties dialog of the virtual application directory. Otherwise reboot the server.
• Alternatively, it might be that the DLL has been moved or deleted, or that for some reason the registered information is wrong. Re-register the DLL (probably in Winnt\System32) using the RegSvr32 utility:

  regsvr32 path_to_dll\stnrmzip.dll