We are often overwhelmed by the number of people who say they do not know how to zip and have windows XP. This is so simple and requires no software out of the box to do this. In the screen shot example I have selected the files and they will be compressed to their own folder in the root folder space. You could also compress the entire folder in this example the root folder on the left would be Merak. So compressing folders or files is quite simple.

If you are on windows 98, ME, or 2000 these have no zip functions build into the OS. Here is a download for a free utility that will offer the same features.  Get it here. Though if you have to be told this one would question a need for more powerful tools Like Win Rar or Win Zip which will allow you to backup and zip protect files on your system running a bat file. We have offered the links to our personal favorites anyway.