New Winzip in the Works

flufster writes "Today WinZip released a public beta version of WinZip 10.0, the latest version of the popular archiving software. The biggest change in this version is that the software has finally been broken into two versions - Standard and Professional, offering paying users additional functionality in the Professional version, while allowing others to use the Standard edition without an annoying nag screen. Version 10.0 has a revamped interface designed to mimic XP's Windows Explorer, and claims to zip archives faster. The software now supports the PPMd and bzip2 compression formats, and can burn from zip archives directly to writable optical media such as CDs and DVDs. The main addition to the Pro edition is an automation feature called 'WinZip Job Wizard' which allows scheduled archiving instructions to be set. Almost all the other features we're used to now come completely free in the Standard edition."

Comments

Last chance saloon

[oberondarksoul]

I've personally always quite liked using WinZip on the PC; yes, Windows has had zip capabilities built-in for a while now (I believe they debuted in Windows ME), but I've still always preferred keeping WinZip around, especially for its disk-spanning capabilities.

However, with broadband increasing in prevelance, and pendrives and CD writers becoming pretty much the norm now for home users (my parents, never the most technologically literate of users, have their own USB pendrives which they love), not to mention zip integration into just about every common OS now, is there still a place for WinZip? Even if people continue to download it, most people I know who've used it just bypass the nag screens without a second thought - how long can they survive?

Re:Last chance saloon

[Evro]

There will always be a place for a format like "ZIP" even if only for its concatenation ability. Downloading 1000 1k files ends up being more time consuming than downloading a single 1 MB file. As for WinZip itself, I don't think most businesses have migrated from Win 2000 yet, and many don't plan to, so there's probably some life left in it.

Re:Last chance saloon

[shancock]

I agree completely. I also have used winzip from day one and this is the first upgrade that my registration number did not work on. Until this point all my upgrades have been free.

I guess this emphasises the fact that they are going to have to find a new way to generate $.

I think it may be time for me to switch. I don't feel that I should be paying for a basic utility that comes free with most apps anyway.

So what?

[Evro]

What is this now, Pressreleasedot? I'm running WinZip 8.0 and will never upgrade it for the same reason I'll never upgrade from AIM 4.3, Acrobat 5, and Office 2000: the problem is solved and the old version does everything it should without any new useless cruft (why is Acrobat 7 ~25 megs to read PDF files? And why does it access the Internet at all?).

Did all the "old school" Slashdot editors leave or something? These new guys they have are pretty lame.

what?

[tomstdenis]

tar + bzip2 + mkisofs + cdrecord.

Wow... now I don't need "professional" tools.

Seriously, windows users come to expect nothing any more I guess. There are alternatives to "the 10th edition of twenty year old compression algorithms".

I'm sorry but honestly what the fuck is the real market for Winzip?

Even when I was a windows user I used Winimp as it is free, compresses better [when making .imp, it also handles zips fine] and doesn't require me to shell out money.

Tom

Re:What a ridiculous advertisement!

[QuantumG]

The stats still show that the vast majority of people who visit Slashdot are running Windows. But yeah, it is an ad.

/. readers should care about WinZip because...

[dskoll]

... it supports a new "deflate64" compression that is NOT supported by zlib. As a result, clamd chokes on some ZIP files and can't scan them.

This pain-in-the-@ss aspect of the new Winzip is the most likely thing to affect /. readers.

WinRAR 3.50 recently released, fyi

[simetra]

This new release includes "themes", which greatly de-uglifies it. Also, it reads/writes iso's, which is cool. I don't know if winzip does that or not. Winrar has a pretty powerful CLI too, which I use to back up certain directories on my Windows machine through a scheduled task. Winzip I believe has command-line options too.

Anyway, the new WinRAR is so nice I bought a copy.

Yes, bought, as in spent money! You can do that, you know.

Re:This is new? I've had it since 1997

[Call Me Black Cloud]

Here's why WinZip is more popular:

1. It's been around a lot longer than your software. The earliest reference I found in Google groups was 1991.
2. Winzip is free. What's that you say? It's not? I think I've seen a registered copy once or twice at work in the last 15 years. Winzip allows you to use the trial version forever. Does your software allow that?

From what I've read, though, you may be in luck. To increase revenue the new owners of the WinZip product will be stricter about trial periods. I'm quite sure they don't have a multimillion dollar budget either. They have momentum; they have users. Search google for "use winzip" and see how many pages read, "to open the file, use winzip or other program..."

To start, why not put your URL with your name or in a sig? If you overlook such simple things how good can your software be?