bawldiggle wrote:I have 17 archivers on my list to investigate.
My preference is for a shell presence on WinExp "Context" menu
I would appreciate your thoughts ?
For this site's purposes, I would recommend Universal Extractor 2 (a fork by Bioruebe; check https://www.portablefreeware.com/?id=2764), which includes a context menu feature -- at the cost of full portability; see UE2 menu "Edit | Context Menu Entries" -- and auto-updating from within the program...
bawldiggle wrote:"TextOps" is perfect for my needs [...] You were right, TextOps does write to C:\Users\~~. I have never attempted portablizing but am willing to give it a try. Any hints would be appreciated
Here, my recommendation goes to yaP (http://yap.rolandtoth.hu/; see also viewtopic.php?t=5698 and viewtopic.php?t=22138).
Just place its executable in a folder, run it once to create a 'yap.ini' configuration file where you can enter file and registry paths, extract TextOps Notepad files to an 'App' sub-folder and you'll be (almost!) done.