That's what I expected. This is unfinished. Not so long ago I wrote to another user:

eM-!3 wrote on 2026-06-29, 08:34:

Nice hobby project but it's not ready. I am trying to use Gemini & Claude for ASM and it's really hit & miss. I am trying to make something much easier (more.com replacement) and still I see how many bugs it can put inside. It makes totally wrong assumptions all the time (from modern computers, modern OSes, modern programming), it needs to be controlled and tested after every single change. 5% time is getting first version that looks like it's working but then 95% is looking for edge cases when it isn't, preparing tests and so on. You can't trust AI to have a tiny little feature working until you really put it to hard tests and it takes time.

Your project is in better shape and it looks like one that might become useful but you need to put more effort in testing part.

eM-!3 wrote on Yesterday, 06:37:

That's what I expected. This is unfinished. Not so long ago I wrote to another user:

eM-!3 wrote on 2026-06-29, 08:34:

Nice hobby project but it's not ready. I am trying to use Gemini & Claude for ASM and it's really hit & miss. I am trying to make something much easier (more.com replacement) and still I see how many bugs it can put inside. It makes totally wrong assumptions all the time (from modern computers, modern OSes, modern programming), it needs to be controlled and tested after every single change. 5% time is getting first version that looks like it's working but then 95% is looking for edge cases when it isn't, preparing tests and so on. You can't trust AI to have a tiny little feature working until you really put it to hard tests and it takes time.

Your project is in better shape and it looks like one that might become useful but you need to put more effort in testing part.

Hi, I appreciate your feedback. Can you please tell me what parts are unfinished? Did you run into any particular bugs so I can reproduce and fix them?

OzzFan wrote on Yesterday, 00:33:

As a heavy user of 7Zip, I wanted to see if I could make a file extractor for DOS ...

Looke like a useful project.

FWIW, there was an actual DOS edition of 7zip:

17-Zip (A) 4.61 beta  Copyright (c) 1999-2008 Igor Pavlov  2008-11-23
2p7zip Version 4.61 (locale=C,Utf16=off,HugeFiles=off,1 CPU)
3
4Usage: 7za <command> [<switches>...] <archive_name> [<file_names>...]
5       [<@listfiles...>]
6
7<Commands>
8  a: Add files to archive
9  b: Benchmark
10  d: Delete files from archive
11  e: Extract files from archive (without using directory names)
12  l: List contents of archive
13  t: Test integrity of archive
14  u: Update files to archive
15  x: eXtract files with full paths
16<Switches>
17  -ai[r[-|0]]{@listfile|!wildcard}: Include archives
18  -ax[r[-|0]]{@listfile|!wildcard}: eXclude archives
19  -bd: Disable percentage indicator
20  -i[r[-|0]]{@listfile|!wildcard}: Include filenames
21  -m{Parameters}: set compression Method (see the manual)
22  -o{Directory}: set Output directory
23  -p{Password}: set Password
24  -r[-|0]: Recurse subdirectories
25  (CAUTION: this flag does not do what you think, avoid using it)
26  -sfx[{name}]: Create SFX archive
27  -si[{name}]: read data from stdin
28  -slt: show technical information for l (List) command
29  -so: write data to stdout (eg: 7z a dummy -tgzip -so Doc.txt > archive.gz)
30  -ssc[-]: set sensitive case mode
31  -t{Type}: Set type of archive
32  -v{Size}[b|k|m|g]: Create volumes
33  -u[-][p#][q#][r#][x#][y#][z#][!newArchiveName]: Update options
34  -w[path]: assign Work directory. Empty path means a temporary directory
35  -x[r[-|0]]]{@listfile|!wildcard}: eXclude filenames
36  -y: assume Yes on all queries

DaveDDS wrote on Yesterday, 10:45:

OzzFan wrote on Yesterday, 00:33:

As a heavy user of 7Zip, I wanted to see if I could make a file extractor for DOS ...

Looke like a useful project.

FWIW, there was an actual DOS edition of 7zip:

Thanks! I wasn't aware of this since I didn't see it on their https://www.7-zip.org/download.html download page. Seems like it makes my project superfluous.

OzzFan wrote on Yesterday, 10:04:

Hi, I appreciate your feedback. Can you please tell me what parts are unfinished? Did you run into any particular bugs so I can reproduce and fix them?

Clicking some buttons with mouse didn't work. I don't have WinRAR right now so the only RAR archive that I tested was one that I downloaded from this forum recently. It wasn't able to unpack it but RAR 2.50 for DOS also failed with the same archive. But Retro7Zip is extracting files without problems.

I didn't see any warning about overwriting files. I didn't see option to select files/dirs to unpack and from my point of view this is starting point which would make this program useful as right now it adds additional layer with no benefit over command line tools.

I also wonder did you project UI or leave it all to AI: menu options, look of windows, shadows, placement, colors used, descriptions etc. Was it part of your plan to have all drives listed every time in open file window?

I know this one is for DOS but did you test it with long names? Did you test it with names using uncommon chars etc.

OzzFan wrote on Yesterday, 12:20:

Thanks! I wasn't aware of this since I didn't see it on their download page. Seems like it makes my project superfluous.

I've not actually used it in many years (but used to use it a LOT "back in the day"), and I have no idea how compatible it is with "modern" 7ZIP.

I've PMed it to you so you can check it out.

eM-!3 wrote on Yesterday, 12:57:

OzzFan wrote on Yesterday, 10:04:

Hi, I appreciate your feedback. Can you please tell me what parts are unfinished? Did you run into any particular bugs so I can reproduce and fix them?

Clicking some buttons with mouse didn't work. I don't have WinRAR right now so the only RAR archive that I tested was one that I downloaded from this forum recently. It wasn't able to unpack it but RAR 2.50 for DOS also failed with the same archive. But Retro7Zip is extracting files without problems.

Once again, I appreciate the feedback. I tested mouse under NT 3.51 as well as real hardware 486 DOS 6.22 and it worked in all cases. The fact that you had a mouse cursor tells me the mouse functionality was there, so what buttons were you clicking in the app that didn't work?

I tested on sample .IMG, .IMA, .RAR 3/4, ZIP, and 7Z on the above platforms on files up to 8MB and all extracted fine. I also have a 3GB .7z archive that it couldn't open, but that was expected.

I can certainly do more testing and throw some more archives at it, but that was kind of the purpose of me posting this. In my test cases everything worked. In order to make this more well-rounded, I asked for feedback.

eM-!3 wrote on Yesterday, 12:57:

I didn't see any warning about overwriting files. I didn't see option to select files/dirs to unpack and from my point of view this is starting point which would make this program useful as right now it adds additional layer with no benefit over command line tools.

That's a legit oversight on my part with the file overwriting prompt. I'll have to address that. The default is to extract files + dirs always.

eM-!3 wrote on Yesterday, 12:57:

I also wonder did you project UI or leave it all to AI: menu options, look of windows, shadows, placement, colors used, descriptions etc. Was it part of your plan to have all drives listed every time in open file window?

Yes, the UI was designed by me using my custom DOSForms framework also used in my Dobson Utilities.

eM-!3 wrote on Yesterday, 12:57:

I know this one is for DOS but did you test it with long names? Did you test it with names using uncommon chars etc.

I wasn't sure about adding LFN support as of yet since my intention was that this would only run under DOS 6.x and older (down to 3.3). I did not test with names using uncommon chars. Again, that's an oversight on my part.

I found the mouse problem and was able to fix it. I added the overwrite prompt with Yes/No/Yes to All/No to All. And I think I got the uncommon character checker working. I updated the release in my original post.

OzzFan wrote on Yesterday, 12:20:

Thanks! I wasn't aware of this since I didn't see it on their https://www.7-zip.org/download.html download page. Seems like it makes my project superfluous.

There is also a modern port of 7-Zip for DOS:
https://github.com/dajhorn/retro7zip

Your project could be interesting if you add support to select which files you want to extract and manage conflicts extracting long file names in MS-DOS 6.22 without any LFN support.