I am transferring backup savesets from an Alpha onto a Windows PC, does anyone know of a utility which will let me read them under windows. I don't want to extract them first as most are just being kept for peosterity.

Why don't you use the /LIST qualifier in your backupcommand to get both a saveset AND listfile of all files in the saveset. The listfile is readable and searchable on your PC.

The problem is that I am looking to transfer a large amount of historic data which might or might not be wanted in future. The Savesets already exist and I would like to transfer them in bulk knowing that I could open in the future on a windows machine, if the need arose.

I don't think there is a tool or ever will be ( never heard of it....) You can use the existing savesets. $ BACKUP/LIST=filename saveset/SAVE_SET Its easy to create a script that reads all your savesets and creates a listfile for each one or one listfile for all.

BTW, have you tried to use the savesets after they have been stored on your NON-VMS-machine ? The savesets will be unraedable......unless you do a $ SET FILE/ATTR=(RFM=FIX,LRL=nnn) saveset You will get the number nnn from the saveset by dumping the first block. $ DUMP/BLOCK=COUNT=1 saveset Byte 41,42 will give you the correct answer ( count from right to left ) In my case "00007E00" ( second row, third column from the right) $ num = %x7E00 $ show sym num NUM = 32256 Hex = 00007E00 Octal = 00000077000 nnn = 32256

Zebedee, When transferring BACKUP save sets to a different platform, please ensure that the transfer is done to assure that the contents of the file are not damaged. This requires a BINARY transfer. If the transfer is done using FTP in text mode, the contents of the save set will be damaged in a way that is generally not recoverable. It is often a good idea to ZIP save sets before transfer (in particular, ZIP "-V" to preserve the OpenVMS file attributes). Once a file has been ZIP'ed, it is also possible to verify the integrity of the ZIP archive using the ZIP Test option on the other platform. A roundtrip back to the OpenVMS system, and verification that the save set is usable, is also recommended. - Bob Gezelter, http://www.rlgsc.com

Thanks, I have managed to transfer VMS>WINDOWS>VMS without any corruption ~ all I need to do is make sure it is binary and reset the attributes before unpacking the savesets. The general consensus would seem to that there is no way round the problem other than unpacking all the savesets before doing the transfer. (Unless I loadup a basic emmulator ?)