HOME
TOPICS
SEARCH
ABOUT ME
MAIL

 
Windows software: Most archivers that handle ZIP files force you to treat them as if they were foreign creatures. But ZipMagic treats all ZIP files as if they were folders, and that makes all the difference in the world.
  technofile
Al Fasoldt's reviews and commentaries, continuously available online since 1983

Best way to handle ZIPs? ZIP Folders wins by a mile


By Al Fasoldt
Copyright © 1996, The Syracuse Newspapers
    Last week I described two good programs for handling those ubiquitous Internet-downloadable ZIP files under Windows -- WinZIP and EasyZIP. I also mentioned a third program that I thought was even better. It's ZIPFolders from Mijenix (now called ZipMagic), for modern versions of Windows.
   Describing ZipMagic is hard work, mostly because it's so different from all other ZIP managers. Basically, when you install ZipMagic, all ZIP files appear as folders, and they behave just like real folders in every way. You can run programs from inside a ZIP file, edit texts or images inside a ZIP, and do everything else you normally do in DOS or Windows.
   ZipMagic inserts itself so thoroughly into the operating system that it fools both DOS and the Windows file system into treating a ZIP file like a folder containing normal files. If you do a standard COPY command from DOS into a ZIPFolder directory, whatever you copy gets added to the ZIP file, to give just one example.
   You can create a ZIPFolder directory by right-clicking and choosing an option from the ZIPFolder menu or by using an uncannily simple procedure -- simply renaming an existing folder so that it has a ZIP filename extension. Or you can just create a folder with a ZIP extension and copy files into it. Or you can copy a normal folder to one that has a ZIP extension, or use any other copying method that works in DOS and Windows.
   ZipMagic amazed me in two ways.
   First, I was astonished that it actually worked. I created hundreds of Windows 95 shortcuts to programs inside ZIP archives and ran them normally, as if they were regular files. ZipMagic uncompressed the files almost instantly -- with perhaps a quarter-second delay in most cases. Really big ZIP files -- ones that contained more than 1,000 files, and ones that were more than 40 or 50 megabytes in size -- tripped up ZipMagic a bit and left me thrumming by fingers for a few seconds.to trip up a bit
   Second, I was impressed with the way ZipMagic deals with all those compressed files and folders inside a ZIP. ZipMagic does not extract the ZIP file into a real folder at any time. Instead, it maintains a table of references to what's in the ZIP, and feeds this to the operating system so that at all times the OS thinks the ZIP file is a folder. Any time that a program needs to grab information from one of the files in the ZIP, ZipMagic takes over and extracts just the item needed. Likewise, if you have all your Microsoft Word documents in a ZIP, ZipMagic makes them appear to Word just like normal Word files, and you can edit old documents or create new ones without doing anything different.
   ZipMagic does more than a good job of handling the ZIPs you get off the Web. It does a transparent job. The ZIPs are just folders, ready for you to work with. And it also serves as a great way to save disk space without using disk compression, since you can store the programs you use every day in ZIP files. Get a 30-day trial version at http://www.mijenix.com. I'll bet you'll want to buy it.
   Last week I mentioned that ZIP files sometimes hide as other files. When they do that, they masquerade as EXE files (executable programs) that need no special software when you want to uncompress them; you just run them.
   But that's the worst way to deal with compressed files. Here's a tip that power users have known for a long time: Treat those EXEs as ZIPs. Rename them with a ZIP extension, or drag-and-drop them onto WinZIP's window, or do whatever else you normally do with ZIPs. If you let them extract themselves, you have no control over what they do and where they go.