How Windows decide whether to use Deflate or Deflate64 for zipping files

Question

Windows Explorer uses the Deflate64 compression method for its zip files, rather than Deflate. Is this behaviour consistent across "current" Windows versions?

I tried one way. I created one zip file whose size is 2.69 GB, and one folder whose size is more than 1.23.

After zipping both of them, the zip file was created using Deflate64 and its size was 3.19 GB.

I would like to know how Windows decides whether to zip the file using Deflate64 or Deflate? What are the conditions required to create Deflate64 zip files?

Answer 1

Use the Deflate compression method. This is the standard compression and decompression algorithm used by the PKZIP 2.04g format. This algorithm provides fast compression and decompression speeds and achieves pretty good compression.

Deflate64 compression method takes longer to compress data than Deflate, but it provides better compression.