No file transfer protocol supports that. Unless the server is able to provide archive contents transparently as if it were a regular folder. I'm not aware of any server that supports that though.

My client has requested the ability to view the contents of a remote zip file before downloading it. Is there any method of remotely viewing the metadata/contents of a file before downloading the entire zip file from the server?

I'm using both command line winscp, as well as APIs for Visual Studio (vb.net) 2012.

Thanks for your time.

Tom