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Replying to myself, but yes, it does. WinZip AES. Better than nothing. (Assuming they used WinZip). Hope they're not meaning a "hold the Shift key down while opening the Access Database 'password'"

I, of course, promptly uninstall it from my machines and replace it with 7-Zip. Last time I checked, Winzip still didn't handle several major file-types (like RAR).

I use 7-Zip too but your comment about Winzip not handling RAR is no longer correct. WinZip 11.1 added RAR and BZ2 support which you can verify directly at the WinZip website:

http://www.winzip.com/prodpagewz.htm

Now that those types of files are supported it can handle the majority of popular compression formats available so it no longer is lacking in that regard. I still will stick with 7-Zip although it is nice to know that if I am on a machine that only has WinZip available I will be able to use it for RAR archives.

In this post the author said, "Microsoft will usually come back with a cut-price offer, something the company never used to do".

In some form that is true. Originally Microsoft gave away the OS with the computer just so they could get their foot in the door. They got people so locked into it that they knew if they had a unique interface then people couldn't leave.

When people start to get a handle on a small application, Microsoft builds that functionality into the operating system. When someone tries to generate the same "look and feel" or just has a name somewhat like their's. They sue until they get their way.

Microsoft Always Will Be A Monopoly. They use the tactics of a monopoly and the only way to fix it is to not use or purchase their software and hardware. There are plenty of other solutions and if you have the capacity to be using another. You should be.

You could even use something like WinZip Jobs to automate the process for the less technical users.

"Caution, WinZip 10.0 is not a free upgrade. If you are a registered user of a previous version of WinZip and install WinZip 10.0, you will no longer be registered."

http://www.winzip.com/whatsnew100b.htm

They do. :) http://www.winzip.com/prodpagecl.htm

*also existed in Win2000 or earlier

Some current Stage 5 situation: (FOSS community begins to slowly but inexorably erode the technical lead held by the commercial offerings)

WS_FTP --> Filezilla
Winzip --> 7-zip

I'd be interested in seeing what factors it takes to push the above into Stage 6 (FOSS version dominates).

was winzip previously free for personal use? the current evaluation version certainly isn't.

http://www.winzip.com/elicense.htm

1. 4NT - I am old enough to use the command line.
2. Visual Slickedit - my editor of choice. I started out with version 4 and I just sent off the money for the upgrade to version 9 yesterday.
3. Subversion - 'cause VCS is a must. The place where I work may not use it but I will.
4. Tortoise SVN - to make my life with a VCS even more easy.
5. Cygwin - mostly for GCC.
6. Linkstash - I think this is a much better way to manage bookmarks
7. Winzip - the latest version. And yes, I've paid for it.
8. Object Desktop - I've gotten addicted to Object Bar and Object Edit. No, I'm not into skinning...
9. OE-QuoteFix - makes Outlook Express a bearable newsreader.
10. ev41 - a free HP-41 emulation for when I need a real calculator. There is a Pocket PC version too.

Here is what gets installed after Windows XP Home SP1a and all the patches:

1. ZoneAlarm Personal Firewall
2. Norton SystemWorks 2004
3. Lavasoft Ad-Aware
4. Spybot Search & Destroy
5. BigFix
6. Adobe Acrobat Reader
7. Mozilla Internet Suite
8. JGSoft EditPad Lite
9. WinZip
10. Yahoo! Messenger

Amen to the comments on EditPlus! Great damn program for the money.

I have more than 10 in my "start from scratch" install, so here goes:

• Acrobat 5
• AdAware 6
• EditPlus (the best damn win32 text editor.)
• Macromedia Fireworks
• Microsoft Remote Desktop (damn good Terminal for Win32)
• Microsoft Office (counting it as one program)
• Nero
• Offline Explorer Pro
• Putty (god bless Simon Tatham!)
• Screen Calipers
• Trillian
• TweakUI
• VirusScan Enterprise
• WinAmp
• WinZip

I'm going to have to check out FileZilla... I've used CuteFTP, LeechFTP, and some others... I've never found one I'm completely happy with. PDF Creator and SpyBot SS look like good programs to have too... thx for the links!

Cygwin usually goes on a machine after a while, but it's an "install as needed" item. I've decided to use RealAlternative instead of installing RealPlayer for the rare occasions I need to view a RAM stream.

I SysAdmin a significantly sized heterogeneous network and to my dismay, I often have to set up new Windows machines and/or reinstall Windows machines.

As an aside, in sysadmin-land, the general rule is to reinstall a machine after someone leaves and/or every two-three years max. Any longer than that and the machine's OS & registry gets too clogged up with crap (among other things) that the machine goes so slow and a complete & clean reinstall is the only way to really regain that lost productivity.

Anyhow, the first 10 or so programs I install on these (primarily w2k) machines are as follows:

• Windows 2000 Service Pack 4 (if you don't install this from a cd before you put the machine on the network, you will get a virus).
• Windows Critical & OS Updates
• Netscape
• Adobe Acrobat Reader
• Sophos AV (served over the network via EMLibrary)
• Office 2002/XP including all service packs
• PuTTY
• WinSCP
• Winzip or PowerArchiver
• Shockwave (since I don't allow user admin rights on most clients)
• Google Toolbar (just a convenience)
• Real Player
• ABC Image Browser

1. Trillian Pro - I use AIM, Y!, ICQ, IRC, and MSN chat clients. I use Trillian to notify me of updates to RSS feeds. I also use it to check POP3 e-mail accounts and Y! and HoTMaiL accounts. I also order my buddy list into Groups and Sub-Groups. Trillian also logs all chats which comes in handy on occasions. I also download the Aikon3 skin for Trillian. Trillian support secure profiles in case you have multiple people using the same install of Trillian.
Trillian website
Aikon 3 website w/Trilliain screenshots

2. Firefox - Light-weight, pop-up blocking, tabbed browsing rocks. And the plugins are very useful. All web designers should use the "Web Development" extension for Firefox. It allows you to automatically resize any webpage, disable images, cookies, java, ..., validates, and so much more. Save a lot time for the web devs. The "EditCSS" extension is cool because you can run your own CSS on other people's websites (make Slashdot fit your blog theme). Oh, and the Mozilla Google Toolbar for Firefox is a "must install". (I also install the Google bar for IE).
Firefox website

3. Microsoft Powertoys for XP (TweakUI) - A Microsoft download that allows for extra and powerful control of XP. Basically, it allows you to make some neat changes to your Registry that allows for increased productivity and usability. Tweaking XP made easy.
Microsoft Powertoys website

4. Versaverter - a neat little units converter that came in very helpful during my Engineering education. It has virtually every unit imaginable.
Versaverter website

5. Winamp5 - Light-weight MP3 player. Also play other media formats both audio and video. Skinnable, scalable, dockable, and extendable. I use only this program to playback MP3's. I like docking my Winamp screen at the bottom of my monitor. It's only about 20 pixels high. I also like right-clicking an MP3 folder and selecting Play in Winamp.
Winamp website

6. BS Player - Light-weight Video player. Playback video in half-time, double-time, resizable video screen, skinnable, commandline support, and more. My favorite video media player as I haven't found a player that gives me more control of the video I am watching.
BS Player website

7. Colorpad - tiny little .exe and GUI eyedropper utility. Use the eyedropper to get the HEX or HTML value of any pixel on screen. I don't think there's any current support for this app. Still, it's very handy and takes up little screen area with the right skin.
Colorpad @ Deviant Art

8. Winzip - compress and decompress files. Duh.
Winzip website

9. TravelAxe - Find cheap hotels from around the world. Puts information from popular travel websites into a sortable spreadsheet. Sorts by price, 1,2,3,4,5 Star rating, and more.
TravelAxe website

10. Musicmatch Jukebox - The only reason I install this software is to convert my audio CDs into MP3 archives. That part of this software is powerful and flexible. Don't use it for anything else.
Musicmatch website

1] PuTTY

2] WinSCP

3] McAffee VirusScan Enterprise

4] Moz Firefox

5] WinAMP

6] WinZIP

7] SciTE

8] MS Office

(I'm familiar with OO.o and StarOffice, but from what I've seen, MSOffice is the hands-down winner for me and is primarily what keeps me on Windows).

9] Adobe Acrobat 6.0 PRO

10] DBDesigner 4

And that about rounds out the list. After that, I reboot and hot-patch the box with locally stored patches, reboot, THEN connect for new patches.

• Putty - A free (GPL) SSH terminal emulator
• Winzip - Yeah, you know what this is
• VLC - Free media player
• OpenOffice.org - I should stop doing these descriptions, its not as if youve heard of these things before!
• GIMP for windows - Yup, the infernal/eternal image editor
• Sharpdevelop - Free (GPL) .net IDE, requires the .net framework and SDK
• Bloodshed Dev-C++ - Excellent free (GPL) C and C++ IDE, using the Windows GCC port
• Thunderbird - Mail client
• Firefox - Web browser
• Adobe Acrobat Reader - PDF Reader
• PDFcreator - GPL PDF print driver for windows
• MessengerPro (Clickatell) - Non free SMS sender for windows, company does good bulk buy sms rates, i buy 500 at a time for less than $5
• Lavasoft Adaware and Spybot SS - For the essentials in life
• Topstyle - Free version of the excellent CSS editor for webdevelopment, if anyone knows a good free alternative, im open to suggestions :)
• SmartFTP - Great free for personal use FTP client, not found a better one yet! (I have, Filezilla it is excellent AND fully GPL, none of this non free shit, bub. :-) )
• MySQL-Front - Old version of the MySQL windows front end, much much better than the new one you pay for. Source isnt open and the old developer discontinued development, possibly one of the best advertisements for why OSS is good :(
• Editplus - Possibly the best editor ive found, not free im afraid, costs around $25

VLC -, like you mentioned, Free media player is a great media player, it blew me away. Better then Window's media player, and I know that my porno viewing habits are not going straight to Bill Gates.

One you didn't mention is Filezilla which is a good GPL ftp program instead of SmartFTP if you want to try another one out. (I must confess I use LeechFTP since I haven't gotten use to Filezilla just yet, although if you are into hosting files Filezilla is even better).

winzip
realvnc
ad-aware
html-kit
irfanview
zonealarm
kazaalite
subspace/continuum
prime95
weatherbug
google toolbar

WinZip's AES encryption is documented here. PKWare's format is apparently proprietary.

WinZip Command Line Support

The Association of Shareware Professionals has some great resources for writing, marketing, and selling software for the author on a tight (read almost no) budget. While some companies probably get VC help, I think this a great start for research if you are interested in trying out some capitalism with your software. There is a lot of competition due to the low barrier of entry, but a motivated individual with talent could end up quitting their day job. WinZip is a good example of a success.

If you're running a Windows box, then the following is mandatory. I even have it all burned to a CD to give to friends. Some free/speech, some free/beer, some shareware.

ZoneAlarm - You MUST have a software firewall for Windows.
Mozilla - I think you know this one by now
OpenOffice.org - Ibid
PuTTY - Not the best interface, but Free ssh/scp client
WinZip - I think XP has its own unzipper, but I suggest WinZip anyway for people. Mostly because I don't deal with people who use XP. I refuse to do computer support for friends who use XP. (I'm making an exception by even talking to you. )

On the Mandrake side, I like using Konqueror. Honestly, the KDE suite, OpenOffice.org, and xmms should give you everything you need for everything. :-)

Are you absolutely positively sure you want to use Windows XP Home instead of the much better XP Professional or even better 2000 Professional? I've had nothing but heartache with the PCs that my family members have bought that have XP Home on them...

Otherwise, people have already suggested Mozilla and a few have suggested Mozilla Firebird, which I myself think is a far superior mail product. Mozilla Thunderbird is what I use for mail at home right now, but it's an acquired taste.

Ad-Aware is indispensable. Every PC should have a copy of it.

For image viewing Irfan View is probably the greatest thing in the world.

You'll of course need WinZip and you'll need the DiVX codec and unfortunately you'll also need Quicktime and Shockwave for numerous braindead (and not so braindead) websites along with the latest Java VM. Besides that, the rest is left up to personal taste. I'd suggest a copy of MS Office because OpenOffice makes me want to gnaw my arm off but then again that's also partially because I can buy Office on student discount at the University Bookstore.
Oh, and get a BitTorrent client from somewhere.

No they're not telemarketers, but they are researchers. The people that call during dinner and ask for 'opinions' in efforts to 'improve customer service'. Yeah it's legal. I know cause I "USED" to work for them. and they suck.

BRG Research Services
Operation hours:
7:00 a.m. to 10:00 p.m. (MST)
Phone:
(801) 373-9923

Toll free:
(800) 800-8784

Fax:
(801) 374-2751

Address:
50 East 500 North, Suite 200
Provo UT, 84601

Sign them up for mailing lists etc. And JAM their phone lines.

Oh yeah, call the Microsoft Dogs on them. They have illegal copies of Windows , illegally registered copies of winzip (you can tell when the registration name is X and code is obviously hacked). and a multitude of pirated software on their systems.

I know, I work there. And I dont' care of the company goes under. They suck [goatse.cx]

You should try Win Zip.

You should try Win Zip.

No they're not telemarketers, but they are researchers. The people that call during dinner and ask for 'opinions' in efforts to 'improve customer service'.

BRG Research Services
Operation hours:
7:00 a.m. to 10:00 p.m. (MST)
Phone:
(801) 373-9923

Toll free:
(800) 800-8784

Fax:
(801) 374-2751

Address:
50 East 500 North, Suite 200
Provo UT, 84601

Sign them up for mailing lists etc. And JAM their phone lines.

Oh yeah, call the Microsoft Dogs on them. They have illegal copies of Windows , illegally registered copies of winzip (you can tell when the registration name is X and code is obviously hacked). and a multitude of pirated software on their systems.

I know, I work there. And I dont' care of the company goes under. They suck

One idea is to store the MD5 sums of all data files somewhere, possibly on the CD itself. Then you can know if the files On CD have been corrupted.

This is the best MD 5 calculator I've found for Windows: MD5sums 1.1. It's very fast and also does batch command-line calculations.

Maybe a better idea is to store all data meant to be written to CD in Zip files. Archive files have a CRC stored for every file. The unarchiving software will complain if the CRC does not match the file.

However, the CRC in a zip file is only 32 bits. I put 2**32 into Google and Google Calculator answered: 2 ** 32 = 4 294 967 296. So there is one chance in 4 billion that a file is different but a CRC is the same.

MD5s are far more unlikely to be identical if the files are different. I put 32 ** 16 into Google and it answered: 32 ** 16 = 1.20892582 x 10**24. Them is good odds. (There are 32 hexadecimal digits in an MD5.)

WinZip 9 beta has a command-line option to encrypt with AES. Encryption acts as a checksum that can be even more secure than an MD5.

Unfortunately, the design of archiving software like WinZip is still primitive. Archiving software should be able to prepare archive files of a given size, and span to a new archive file when adding another folder (or, optionally, a file) would make an archive too large. Then you would be able to retrieve the files easily, since each CD would have a complete archive stored on it. At present the spanning option of archiving software is stupid; it is necessary to put all the spanned archive files back together to retrieve any information.

One idea is to store the MD5 sums of all data files somewhere, possibly on the CD itself. Then you can know if the files On CD have been corrupted.

This is the best MD 5 calculator I've found for Windows: MD5sums 1.1. It's very fast and also does batch command-line calculations.

Maybe a better idea is to store all data meant to be written to CD in Zip files. Archive files have a CRC stored for every file. The unarchiving software will complain if the CRC does not match the file.

However, the CRC in a zip file is only 32 bits. I put 2**32 into Google and Google Calculator answered: 2 ** 32 = 4 294 967 296. So there is one chance in 4 billion that a file is different but a CRC is the same.

MD5s are far more unlikely to be identical if the files are different. I put 32 ** 16 into Google and it answered: 32 ** 16 = 1.20892582 x 10**24. Them is good odds. (There are 32 hexadecimal digits in an MD5.)

WinZip 9 beta has a command-line option to encrypt with AES. Encryption acts as a checksum that can be even more secure than an MD5.

Unfortunately, the design of archiving software like WinZip is still primitive. Archiving software should be able to prepare archive files of a given size, and span to a new archive file when adding another folder (or, optionally, a file) would make an archive too large. Then you would be able to retrieve the files easily, since each CD would have a complete archive stored on it. At present the spanning option of archiving software is stupid; it is necessary to put all the spanned archive files back together to retrieve any information.

The new WinZip 9.0 beta has AES encryption, that is being added in the best possible way:

AES Encryption Information

AES Coding Tips for Developers

There are many new features to this upgrade. Upgrades are free to registered users.

WinZip has a spanning option: "-&[w] Span to multiple removable disks. Use the optional w suffix to wipe out all files on the removable disk." However, I've never used it, and I don't think it writes directly to DVDs or CDs. There is no way to have WinZip span to multiple zip files of specified length, apparently.

The new WinZip 9.0 beta has AES encryption, that is being added in the best possible way:

AES Encryption Information

AES Coding Tips for Developers

There are many new features to this upgrade. Upgrades are free to registered users.

WinZip has a spanning option: "-&[w] Span to multiple removable disks. Use the optional w suffix to wipe out all files on the removable disk." However, I've never used it, and I don't think it writes directly to DVDs or CDs. There is no way to have WinZip span to multiple zip files of specified length, apparently.

The new WinZip 9.0 beta has AES encryption, that is being added in the best possible way:

AES Encryption Information

AES Coding Tips for Developers

There are many new features to this upgrade. Upgrades are free to registered users.

WinZip has a spanning option: "-&[w] Span to multiple removable disks. Use the optional w suffix to wipe out all files on the removable disk." However, I've never used it, and I don't think it writes directly to DVDs or CDs. There is no way to have WinZip span to multiple zip files of specified length, apparently.

The new WinZip 9.0 beta has AES encryption, that is being added in the best possible way:

AES Encryption Information

AES Coding Tips for Developers

There are many new features to this upgrade. Upgrades are free to registered users.

WinZip has a spanning option: "-&[w] Span to multiple removable disks. Use the optional w suffix to wipe out all files on the removable disk." However, I've never used it, and I don't think it writes directly to DVDs or CDs. There is no way to have WinZip span to multiple zip files of specified length, apparently.

"Advanced encryption
WinZip 9.0 supports 128- and 256-bit key AES encryption, which provide much greater cryptographic security than the traditional Zip 2.0 encryption method used in earlier versions of WinZip.

WinZip 9.0's advanced encryption (FIPS-197 certified) uses the Rijndael cryptographic algorithm which, in 2001, was specified by the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) in Federal Information Processing Standards (FIPS) Publication 197 as the Advanced Encryption Standard (AES).

After a three-year competition, the AES was announced by NIST as an approved encryption technique for use by the U.S. government, private businesses, and individuals. When properly implemented as a key component of an overall security protocol, the AES permits a very high degree of cryptographic security, yet is fast and efficient in operation.

WinZip's AES encryption is just as easy to use as traditional Zip 2.0 encryption: all you have to do is select the encryption strength and specify your password.

Note: recipients to whom you send AES-encrypted Zip files must have a compatible Zip file utility in order to decrypt the files. At this time, WinZip 9.0 is required. We have, however, published the full specification for creating WinZip-compatible AES-encrypted Zip files, and we expect that other Zip file utility vendors will provide support for the format. "

"Advanced encryption
WinZip 9.0 supports 128- and 256-bit key AES encryption, which provide much greater cryptographic security than the traditional Zip 2.0 encryption method used in earlier versions of WinZip.

WinZip 9.0's advanced encryption (FIPS-197 certified) uses the Rijndael cryptographic algorithm which, in 2001, was specified by the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) in Federal Information Processing Standards (FIPS) Publication 197 as the Advanced Encryption Standard (AES).

After a three-year competition, the AES was announced by NIST as an approved encryption technique for use by the U.S. government, private businesses, and individuals. When properly implemented as a key component of an overall security protocol, the AES permits a very high degree of cryptographic security, yet is fast and efficient in operation.

WinZip's AES encryption is just as easy to use as traditional Zip 2.0 encryption: all you have to do is select the encryption strength and specify your password.

Note: recipients to whom you send AES-encrypted Zip files must have a compatible Zip file utility in order to decrypt the files. At this time, WinZip 9.0 is required. We have, however, published the full specification for creating WinZip-compatible AES-encrypted Zip files, and we expect that other Zip file utility vendors will provide support for the format. "

seems like a familiar story to me.

If you only use *nix systems then yes, that is correct.

However for many years the Windows standard of compressing files has been the zip. Ask a standard Windows user what a tar, bz2, or tgz file is and will have no clue.

"A standard Windows user" (since when MS-Windows is a standard? I don't think it is POSIX compliant.) doesn't even see her files' suffixii (which, by the way, is the sole reason for e-mail Trojan horses usually having names, such as "innocent.doc.exe") and she uses whatever program, which is associated with a given suffix.

For that very reason, no matter if she gets "cat-latest-photos.zip" or, e.g. "cat-latest-photos.tgz," she sees just "cat-latest-photos," which, after clicking, will be handled by, e.g. Win Zip. See Internet File Format Support In WinZip:

"WinZip features support for the TAR and gzip formats. This means you can use WinZip to work with almost all compressed files downloaded from the Internet. No external programs are needed for these file formats."

I always care about MS-Windows users. I don't see any reason to ignore them just because they are usually misinformed. This would just not be professional.

While it's always good to have a *nix perspective on things here on /., to say that zip is not a standard in the Windows world is to ignore the reality of the situation.

I can assure you, that, no matter how strongly you are trying to implicate it, I would never ignore the reality of the situation.

WinZip is shareware, actually.
Now that Windows XP has built-in basic zip functionality, I wonder how many people will continue to download WinZip?

WinZip is shareware, actually.
Now that Windows XP has built-in basic zip functionality, I wonder how many people will continue to download WinZip?

Yes, Zip support is built into WinXP, but utilities like WinZip, PicoZip and WinRar will still be needed by many people. There are tons of very useful features that are just not available in the Zip support in XP. You might want to take a look at the features list on those sites to get an idea.

1. Buy QDOS from Larry Ellison
2. Sell it to Large Computer Maker
3. Sell it at the same time to generic PC makers
4. Continually piggyback new products by
   • Screwing competitors out of new technology.
   • Buy, Steal, or Copy any software too small to screw.
5. Dominate the market
6. Once market share is 100%, force people to pay twice

Go to a site like WinZip

They know how to relese evaluation copies!

Software piracy really is bad and harmful, but as will all things there are exceptions:

Winzip:
How much should one person make off of a frontend for someone elses compression algorhythm?

Microsoftware:
Why not just make a donation to the Al Qaeda while you're at it?

or Incredibly trivial software like a cheesy password generator, or (OMG!) a random number generator that cost $15.00

• WinAMP
• WinZip
• WinRAR
• WindowBlinds (well, it's not "Windows"...)
• WinTV

Then of course there's X-Windowing System...

Unfortunately, none of these are operating systems - they are all software packages and quite distinct from the OS to most people (er, except for WinTV, which is a hardware card). I seriously doubt "Lindows" has a leg to stand on. (I'd have named it something like "WinOnLin" or something else that gets the idea that it's a Windows emulator running on Linux, Lindows is a pretty dumb name... Although I suppose they could argue Lindows = LINux + WinDOWS, but I doubt that'll fly...)

How might Microsofts NON-prosecution of such software as WinZip reflect on this case?

I've often read that in order to maintain a copyright, one must actively defend it. Of such things are MacDonald's "cease and desist" cases against restaurants in Scotland run by someone with the last name of MacDonald.

Such non-prosecution of a known commercial company using just such a partial name link-in can only damage their case in prosecuting someone else who only proposes to also use some letters to do the same thing.

Thoughts?

Bob-

Make me something that doesn't suck,and I'll pay for it, don't force me to upgrade every 20 minutes to a more bloated piece of crap...

Unfortunately, if I write software that doesn't suck, doesn't need patches, and does what you want, you'll buy one copy (Netware 3, WinZip, Eudora) and in 2 years I'll be bankrupt.

If I write software with tons of broken features and requiring constant upgrades for 'compatibility' and security (SAP, QuickBooks, and Windows 95), I'm guaranteed plenty of repeat customers.

Now if you'll excuse me, I need to go buy a $100 ink cartridge for my $30 printer.

Winzip is owned by Winzip Inc., and is really not affiliated with Microsoft.

Windows 98 Plus has compressed folder technology included which was added using Dynazip from Innermedia Inc.

Both technologies are based of the infozip code however that code is only the basis for what is being used nowadays. So each program/developer kit has a different way of doing things.

There are indeed alot of free programs out there for the taking, however most are written by random programmers with some free time on their hands.

Hopefully that sums up everything for all of ya ^.^

It would be trivial for Napster to prevent transferring illegally stolen music: simply prevent transferring any file with a valid MP3 header.

It would be even more trivial to break this.

1. Download the evaluation copy of winzip if you don't already have it.

2. Download the dumb exe thing.

3. Open Winzip, and then open the exe WITH WINZIP.

4. Extract the PDF without agreeing to the license.

This is what I have done, I did NOT agree (nor did I even SEE) the license, and I now have access to the .pdf file. I will give copies of the .pdf file to anyone who asks, its public domain as far as I'm concerned.

-- iCEBaLM

As most Microsoft's self-extracting files, this one is only a CAB file and therefore, you can simply use a program like WinZip to extract the PDF document.

WinZip handles tarred and/or gzipped files just fine, if you're on a Windows box.