WinZip

WinZip

WinZip 11
Developed by	WinZip International LLC
Stable release	12.0 (Build 8252)  (10 September 2008; 119 days ago) [+/−]
Preview release	[+/−]
OS	Windows
Available in	English, Spanish, French, German, Japanese
Type	File archiver
License	Proprietary Shareware
Website	www.winzip.com

WinZip Computing Inc. logo

WinZip is a proprietary file archiver and compressor for Microsoft Windows, developed by WinZip Computing (formerly Nico Mak Computing). It natively uses the PKZIP format but also has various levels of support for other archive formats.

WinZip was created in the early 1990s as a shareware GUI front-end for PKZIP. Sometime around 1996 the creators of WinZip incorporated compression code from the Info-ZIP project, thus eliminating the need for the PKZIP executable to be present.

From version 6.0 until version 9.0, registered users could download the newest versions of the software, enter their original registration information, and thereby obtain a free upgrade. As of version 10.0 this upgrade scheme was discontinued.^[1] WinZip is available in standard and professional versions. However, the ability of Windows XP and Windows Vista to open .zip files (as "compressed folders") has reduced sales.

In May 2006, Corel Corporation, known for its WordPerfect and CorelDRAW product lines, announced that it has completed acquisition of WinZip Computing.^[2]

WinZip has a 45-day free evaluation period. However, in some versions it continues to work even after this period of time.

[edit] Features

• Creation, addition, extraction from ZIP archives.
• Configurable Microsoft Windows Shell integration.
• 128- and 256-bit key AES encryption.^[3] This has replaced the less secure PKZIP 2.0 encryption method used in earlier versions. The implementation, using Brian Gladman's code, was FIPS-197 certified, on March 27, 2003.^[4]
  Version 9 also implemented a 64-bit version of the PKZIP file format, eliminating both the maximum limit of 65,535 members for single archive and the 4-gibibyte size limit on either the archive and each member file.
• Support of the bzip2 (9.0), PPMd (10.0), WavPack (11.0), allowing smaller archives at the cost of a potential increase in compression and extraction times (especially when using PPMd).
• Decompression of .bz2 and .rar files.
• Support for ARC, ARJ, LHA archives if suitable external programs are installed.
• Direct write of ZIP archives to CD/DVD
• Automation of backup jobs
• Integrated FTP upload
• Email ZIP archives
• WinZip prior to 11.2 does not support Unicode characters in filenames.^{[5] [6]} Attempting to add these files to an archive results in the error message "Warning: Could not open for reading: ..."
• Unicode support to ensure international characters are displayed for filenames in a Zip file
• Integrated support to create, open and extract LHA and LZH archives

[edit] WinZip add-ons

• WinZip E-Mail Companion: It adds archive processing capabilities on e-mail attachements. Supported software include Microsoft Outlook, Outlook Express or Windows Mail.
• WinZip Self-Extractor: It adds self-extrator modules to ZIP archives. A version called WinZip Self-Extractor Personal Edition is included with WinZip.
• WinZip Command Line Add-on: It adds command line processing to WinZip.

[edit] History

The ZIP file archive format (PKZIP) was originally invented for MS-DOS in 1989 by Phil Katz and his company PKWare.^[7]

Because PKWare did not protect the name by trademark and algorithm of the process by patent, and was slow to realize that the Windows operating systems would eventually dominate the OS market, Nico Mak (then employed by Mansfield Software Group, Inc) eventually seized the opportunity and released the WinZip application for Microsoft Windows.

WinZip 8.0 is the last major release to officially support Windows 95.

WinZip 9.0 adds support for AES encryption for ZIP archives, BZip2-compressed ZIP archives (extraction only).This version was released in 2004.

WinZip 10 adds support for creating and extracting PPMd-compressed ZIP archives. It is the last major release to officially support Windows 98/ME. WinZip Pro is added in this release, which adds automation and task scheduling features.This version was released in 2005.

WinZip 11 adds support for creating and extracting WavPack-compressed ZIP archives. The installer will still install to Windows 98/ME, but these operating systems are no longer officially supported. WinZip Pro adds Passive FTP support, FTP transfers, e-mail notification option for Job Wizard, custom jobs selection, full-size image viewer when opening archive. This version was released in 2006.

WinZip 11.1 is certified for Windows Vista, with Vista theme support and 64-bit Windows support.

WinZip 11.2 can create LHA archives without an external utility. Unicode file name support for ZIP archives was also added.

WinZip 12.0 adds support for JPEG and LZMA compression for ZIP files; .ISO, .IMG, 7-Zip archive extractions. Added encryption policies, integrated image thumbnail viewer. This version was released in 2008.

[edit] See also

• Comparison of file archivers

[edit] Notes

[edit] External links

• WinZip home page