Paul Taylor wrote:

   Would anyone be willing to give me some pointers?

   Windows OS. I want to compress files and folders into archive.

   I will transfer them using SecureFTP to a Linux machine.

   On Linux machine I would like to decompress files and folders into
   original structure.

   Can anyone help me on the program to use for compression on Windows? I
   use Winzip and WinRAR right now.

   Maybe I can use Winzip or WinRAR to compress them in .tar.gz format
   but I haven't figured it out.

   7-ZIP for Windows from [1]http://www.7-zip.com is Free Software and
   can compress and uncomress .gz and .bz2 files.
   To get the files from Linux to Windows and back use the SecurityFTP
   option in FileZilla from [2]http://www.filezilla.com/ -- it will work
   with any SSH equiped server.
--
Just my three trits. GPG Finger Print:
7A81 0A2F 1ABE DC38 DABC  7C22 B2EE 2304 4A89 46BF

References

   1. http://www.7-zip.com/
   2. http://www.filezilla.com/