How to Unblock Files with Batch Process – Windows

When you download a .zip file from the internet, or another computer, it puts a “block” file security attribute on it.  So if you don’t right click on the zip, click properties, and click unblock – when you unzip it without removing that, all of the files in that zip will carry that “block” file attribute.

The idea is to look for any king batch process that will search through and unblock an entire file hierarchy.  If that is not possible the actions with be right click file; click properties, click unblock, click ok but that will take for ever.

Here is a process that has worked for me:

LockedFilesImage

 

  1. Download Streams v1.56 from http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/bb897440.aspx (just search in Google and you will find the tool). It is part of the Windows Sysinternals collection tool.
  2. Extract the Streams.zip in any folder
  3. Copy streams.exe (extracted file) to  C:\Windows\System32\
  4. Now you you run the following command to unlock all files and directories within a directory.


streams -s –d *.*

Sample:

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