TapePac consists of a VMS Client and a Windows Server which communicate using TCP/IP. TheTapePac Windows Server runs as a Windows Service on Windows 2000, Windows 2003, or Windows XP. The TapePac commands to convert a VMS tape or restore files from a Windows disk are entered on the VMS Client.

TapePac offers two modes for transferring tape contents to a Windows disk - Convert mode and Copy mode.

Convert mode copies all of the files within Backup savesets on the tape and writes them to TapePac pacsets on the Windows computer. Files can be restored directly from the pacsets using TapePac. Convert mode can be used with all tapes, including tapes written with a block size of 65535 bytes.

Copy mode copies the savesets from the tape and stores them on the Windows computer. Files can be restored by copying the savesets back to VMS and using VMS Backup to process the savesets. Copy mode can only be used with tapes which were written with a block size of 32256 bytes or smaller.

Both modes include data compression to minimize data transfer time and file sizes.

TapePac automatically sorts tape contents based on the tape label and date, so that savesets from a particular tape are stored within the same folder on the Windows computer.