P7ZIP is a command line version of 7zip i use on Linux, it has every feature i need, from many compression methods (RAR, 7ZIP LZMA, BZIP2, GZIP, you name it), the windows version is great, it is really handy.

The ability of 7ZIP to use both cores of your dual core, and all four cores of your quad core for certain formats like bzip2 doubles, or quadruples the speed of compression and decompression.

Here, i want to present you with examples of command line usage, Then i will copy and paste the manual beneath it so you can tweak the template/preset commands as you please, but they should make things much faster than having to compose the command every time you want to compress or decompress something.

So, i want to use a 7z container, but i would like the compression inside to be bzip2, simply because this way i can utilize all 8 processors on my dual socket, quad core xeon system.