So I started with the 'Compiling Inkscape for the Win32 Platform' document and cannot unpack a downloaded copy of gtk26 with 7-zip. I
get
the error 'this is not a supported archive' with both gtk copies on
the
website using either of the 2 available versions of 7-zip.
See below...
Downloading with IE produces different size files from using Firefox
so
I'm guessing it's a download problem.
You are correct that it is a download problem. I was having the same issue recently. The trick is to use wget or some download manager such as freshdownload or something to ensure that you get a complete archive.
Can anyone point me to an alternative source of the gtk26 library, perhaps in a normal zip format?
The format is not the issue, it is definitely just that the file was incomplete. The size/bandwidth savings afforded by 7zip are too good to pass up. ;)
-Josh