yeah, davepl is the third party, isn't he? he wrote that software and sold it on the side, and Microsoft reached out to him to purchase it without knowing that he was a Microsoft employee at the time.

> The OP did get the original authors wrong, but it's still a third-party implementation, and Dave's only contribution is the integration with Windows Explorer.

Jesus Christ, why are people around here always so obtuse?

Dave never claimed to have written the decompression routines. Nor does anyone care about that part. He wrote the explorer integration, that was the product: Browsing zip as if they were folders.

That's it. That's his claim. And that's the reality. Which zip library he used in the back is an implementation detail and doesn't matter in the least.