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Question: Zipped Files
I've really been enjoying all the great information you've been sending - keep it coming! I've been having a problem with a file a friend sent me. I downloaded the file and was able to find it in Windows Explorer (I got a lot of help with this from your email class and your website). When I try to open it, I get this baffling message:
'Click the program you want to use to open the file solitaire.zip.'
What am I doing wrong?
Answer:
You're not doing anything wrong. Notice that the file you downloaded ends with .zip. This means that the program has been compressed to reduce its size and make it easier to download.
We all know that to compress something means to squish it down and make it smaller. Files can also be squished. Since compression significantly reduces the size of a file, this helps free hard disk space and it also makes sending files via e-mail easier and quicker to do.
ZIP is an example of a compression format. A lot of Windows downloads are available in this format. With the right software, you could shrink just about any piece of data -- or unshrink it.
Now that you have downloaded the zipped file, you must UNZIP it. To do this, you need a zip program. My favorite is PKzip which you can download for free at the PKware website (look for Shareware Download).
Once you have downloaded and installed your unzipping program, just right click on any file that ends in .zip and click one of the "Extract" commands to unzip the file. You can do this in Windows Explorer.
Special Note for AOL users: AOL contains it's own unzipping program. If someone sends you a zipped file, download it, then sign off of AOL. It will unzip the file for you automatically.
Since the PKware website frequently changes it address, go to your favorite search engine and do a search on pkware. At the website, you can usually download a trial version of the PKware program.
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ZIP files ? What's a ZIP?
Most programs consist of multiple files, and some of them can be pretty big in the amount of space they take up on a drive. It would be difficult to download each file separately and keep track of what you have and what you need.
Zip Files solve this problem. A Zip file compress all the files a program needs into one single file. You only download the one file, and it is smaller than the sum of its contents because it is compressed. The most popular format of compressed file used on PCs is the ZIP format.
Once you have downloaded this file, you have to UnZip it. Here are the steps to do so:
1. Place the ZIP file in a temporary folder on your computer.
2. Open your unZIP program. UnZIP the file into the temporary folder
3. If the ZIP file contains a program, run the setup.exe file as discussed above. (Note: many zipped files contain a file called README.TXT that you can read using Notepad. This file often has any special installation instructions and other information that you may need) |
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