(If I knew how to move this to a new thread, such as could be done in email by editing the subject, I would get this to be on-topic. ;-) Yes, I am/was aware that the shell can access .zip archives. So can many other tools. However, I do not know of any existing tool or combination of tools that is willing to stream .zip archive content in response to HTTP requests while leaving it merely compressed in place rather than writing a file (and typically gobs of files) in a temp directory. As I recall, the Java runtime pulls things for use from .jar files without littering files around in the file system. I also know of sqlar archives and their use in Linux/Unix to present a user-space implemented file system which can be mounted where needed. ("FUSE"?) Making that do the above on my Windows-running workstation might be enough to induce getting the Linux subsystem going. Having that tool is more attractive than a special-cased browser capability with a new transport protocol.