I just checked and the version of PKZip Ive been using is about to have its 10th birthday, so perhaps time to update. Actually, I keep hitting a maximum file number/size limits in backing up Poser and other large graphics directories, so going to venture onto the thin ice of new software once again.

Questions re PKZip vs WinZip:

-Do the current trial versions of either app actually expire? Or, as before, just leave a Nag screen?

-Any security issues or differences?

-Any real differences or advantages to one or the other? (the version of WinZip I had last tried did not allow for relative file paths, just full paths or no paths, which is why I've kept using PKZip) Anything else like that?

general opinions welcomed!

-Do the current trial versions of either app actually expire? Or, as before, just leave a Nag screen? no expiry just a nag screen. -Any security issues or differences? better security and improved compression algorythms than a 10 year old DOS version ;) -Any real differences or advantages to one or the other? (the version of WinZip I had last tried did not allow for relative file paths, just full paths or no paths, which is why I've kept using PKZip) Anything else like that? drag and drop ability, relative file paths, etc... I would upgrade.... they've improved a lot in the last few years...

Sheesh - was right in the middle of posting this yesterday when the server went down....

Thank-you Khai. Upgrading for sure, so was really interested in any differences between the current versions of the two apps: WinZip ver.9 & PKZip ver.8.

(like, I just noticed that WinZip gives a "Time Remaining" estimate in minutes & sec, while PKZip just shows a graphic progress bar)

Any other stuff like that.

drifting further... I've also noticed that with the new versions installed, that when doing a search in Windows Explorer, it no longer searches INSIDE zipped files as it did with the older versions installed. I presume this is because the Nag screen, which now appears upon opening rather than closing, prevents the searches until it is responded to, but by then the file is skipped by Explorer. Any workaround for that (short of actually buying a license)?

WinRAR is another option.... I used to use WinZIP but after getting WinRAR I deleted it because WinRAR supports all the file compressions (.rar .zip .iso (probably a few others I haven't looked at too)

wow...that takes me back..I started with Pkzip .0-something..and it was an alpha version (only time I ever saw that..;)
there's oodles of 'zip' proggies out there, 7-zip, winrar, alladinsofts' uh..dang..whateveritscalled. Yeah, the nag screen gets old, but whaddayawantforfree?..;)

I use PKZip for Windows - I bought it some time ago when WinZip didn't do relative paths, but PKZip did. Having said that, I generally use full paths from a special root folder when zipping stuff up for Poser, because full paths preserves the capitalization of the folder names, whereas relative paths don't. Capitalization is important because Poser sorts library folders in ASCII order, so lower case names get put at the end. I don't want to get into the multiple !!!! syndrome, but I would like Morphography to come between L and N. ;) When I asked PKWare if they were thinking of fixing this, they just grunted and shrugged, so I won't bother with them again.

That's a handy bit of info. Thanks EBob!

I've used 7-Zip a bit. It's free and open source, but the UI is klunky and kind of lacking compared to WinZip. (Windows Explorer integration is particularly weak.) However it does have a command-line version, so if you're used to PKZip for DOS, you should feel right at home. 7-Zip also offers better compression than the standard ZIP format if you use their 7z format. Mostly, I still use Power Archiver v.6 which was the last freeware version of Power Archiver. It's got a few bugs, but nothing I can't live with - and no nag screens. The feature set is comparable to WinZip. If they ever get the interface fixed up in 7Zip, I'll probably move to that full time.

Attached Link: http://www.izarc.org

I've been using "Batchzip Tool Kit" to zip files in batches. Works really well. I still have Winzip, but got tired of zipping one file at a time when I had sometimes 200 files to zip up.

Now I just stick everything I want to zip into one folder, run Batch Zip, and it zips up each file. Takes seconds.

To unzip, depending on what it is that I'm unzipping, I'll use Winzip. However, if I'm unzipping a batch of zip files, I'll use "Unziplify". If I'm only zipping one file, then I'll use Winzip, but if I'm needing to zip many, I use Batch Zip.

Message edited on: 10/06/2005 16:23