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New Winzip in the Works

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the unzip-it dept.

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."

2 of 530 comments (clear)

  1. what the hell by Adult+film+producer · · Score: 0, Redundant

    Is slashdot being paid by the winzip authors to post this story ? Sure it might be widely used but how about posting a story about an opensource/free compression package ????? At the top of my screen there's a bar with links to "freshmeat, sourceforge, thinkgeek, " ... Does Malda and his crew care about that stuff anymore or is this just a sleazy and easy money making operation for them ?

  2. This is new? I've had it since 1997 by mimarsinan · · Score: 1, Redundant

    I wrote my first archiver, called CompreXX, back in 1997. It had the exact "new" Explorer interface that's the big deal in WinZip 10 now, 8 years later.

    In 1999 I added plug-in extensibility to the product, so it could be extended to support more archives while keeping the same UI.

    In 2002, I made the product manage archives natively in Windows Explorer itself - just like what Windows XP does for ZIP files, except for all archive types (that plug-ins support) and all Windows platforms. Give WinZip another 8 years and they'll figure that one out.

    CompreXX right now natively compresses ZIP, RAR, ACE, SIT, 7ZIP (7ZIP has the best compression), and 28 total archive formats. It extracts 48. Of course, because I do not have a multimillion dollar marketing budget, there is nothing I can do to get the word out about it.

    And reading about WinZip's revolutionary "new" features, especially on Slashdot, is really depressing.