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ZipMagic 4.0

ZipMagic 4.0

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Product Info Reviews

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Rating: 2 stars
Summary: Used to be great
Review: I used to swear by (never at) this product when it was version 1, on Windows 95. I happily paid the registration fee.

But all sorts of nasty things (filesystem crashes, lockups) happened after I upgraded to V4 so I could run it on Windows 2000. The then-owners (Ontrack I think) admitted there were issues, but other than suggesting reinstallation (which didn't work) they had nothing. It was a shocker. I couldn't find anything mentioning this on the web, and now the product seems to have faded into obscurity. Maybe it's ok under SP4, I don't know, I can't afford to risk it. Shame.

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: Make some improvements and this software would be great.
Review: If you have a great number of files that you need to get from one place to another most people use some sort of compression utility. Zip Magic is one of those applications and for the money I found it to useful and easy to use.

The installation of the application was without error for Windows 95 & 98. Under NT and 2000 I found that I had to disable the virus program before the install would even begin. Under Windows ME I was able to install the application but the virus scanner didn't work.

The utility does compress file smaller than either WinZip or PKZip32, but the time to compress took longer. I was impressed by the user interface and the on-line help files were also very good.

The application comes with the ability to make self-extracting files and this part of the application out performed any other compression utility I tested. As for the virus scanner, I found that it didn't pick up some macro viruses so I am sticking with my current scanner.

Overall, OnTrack has created a compression utility that does rival the others. To push it over the top it needs a few minor tweaks and adjustments.

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: Make some improvements and this software would be great.
Review: If you have a great number of files that you need to get from one place to another most people use some sort of compression utility. Zip Magic is one of those applications and for the money I found it to useful and easy to use.

The installation of the application was without error for Windows 95 & 98. Under NT and 2000 I found that I had to disable the virus program before the install would even begin. Under Windows ME I was able to install the application but the virus scanner didn't work.

The utility does compress file smaller than either WinZip or PKZip32, but the time to compress took longer. I was impressed by the user interface and the on-line help files were also very good.

The application comes with the ability to make self-extracting files and this part of the application out performed any other compression utility I tested. As for the virus scanner, I found that it didn't pick up some macro viruses so I am sticking with my current scanner.

Overall, OnTrack has created a compression utility that does rival the others. To push it over the top it needs a few minor tweaks and adjustments.

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: Very good
Review: Zipmagic difently gives winzip a run for its money! You can view zipped files with ease without decompressing them and extract just one or many files and not the whole archive. It does do a great job of compressing, better than many others, but if you want to really compress your files you have to use winace
Winace can support ALL compression types including their own .ace which is more than half the size of any zip archive.
It has any feature that you could ever want in a compression program.
You can also create self-extracting files. I use it to create self extracting files that i e-mail and they are SO MUCH SMALLER than the zip or any compression type making all those people with 56k connections a lot happier!!
...

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: The best zip utility around
Review: ZipMagic is by far the best zip utility available as has been true since version 1.0. The unique feature that sets this zip utility apart from the others is that it lets you view and use the files in zipped files without decompressing them just as if they were regular folders. That's a huge time saver. Also, if you install software and add ".zip" to the end of the installation folder, the files will install on the hard drive compressed thus saving hard drive space. This version can be integrated with Outlook and other e-mail programs to allow for compression of files before e-mailing. It also allowws you to integrate your antivirus program to allow for instantanious scanning of compressed downloaded files. Also, ZipMagic handles virtually every compression format that you'll ever see. Highly recommended.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: The best zip utility around
Review: ZipMagic is by far the best zip utility available as has been true since version 1.0. The unique feature that sets this zip utility apart from the others is that it lets you view and use the files in zipped files without decompressing them just as if they were regular folders. That's a huge time saver. Also, if you install software and add ".zip" to the end of the installation folder, the files will install on the hard drive compressed thus saving hard drive space. This version can be integrated with Outlook and other e-mail programs to allow for compression of files before e-mailing. It also allowws you to integrate your antivirus program to allow for instantanious scanning of compressed downloaded files. Also, ZipMagic handles virtually every compression format that you'll ever see. Highly recommended.

Rating: 2 stars
Summary: Great for ZIPs, use caution with other archive file types
Review: ZipMagic is extremely convenient, and reliable for ZIP files. I've been using it for years.

But WARNING, I just found out the hard way that it can produce CORRUPT files when extracting from LZH/LHA files!

I contacted customer support and we went back an forth several times. Here's their latest "answer"

> Response (Ontrack Technical Support) - 09/20/2002 09:59 AM
> The Compression Plus library files that are used in ZipMagic only
> have the ability to view the contents of LHA/LZH files. The library
> files cannot extract the LHA/LZH files, it can only view them.
> This is a limitation of the library files that ZipMagic uses and will
> not be corrected until the library files are updated by Compression
> Plus. Sorry for the inconvenience.

This is B.S. because their own manual, two years old now, says how to extract files from LZH/LHA archives.

I'll be happy to provide a sample LZH file to prove my claim, to them or anyone else. It extracts just fine with lha255.exe.

Mike

p.s. I've heard that ZipMagic 7.0 is out now... I don't know if this problem as been corrected...

Rating: 2 stars
Summary: Great for ZIPs, use caution with other archive file types
Review: ZipMagic is extremely convenient, and reliable for ZIP files. I've been using it for years.

But WARNING, I just found out the hard way that it can produce CORRUPT files when extracting from LZH/LHA files!

I contacted customer support and we went back an forth several times. Here's their latest "answer"

> Response (Ontrack Technical Support) - 09/20/2002 09:59 AM
> The Compression Plus library files that are used in ZipMagic only
> have the ability to view the contents of LHA/LZH files. The library
> files cannot extract the LHA/LZH files, it can only view them.
> This is a limitation of the library files that ZipMagic uses and will
> not be corrected until the library files are updated by Compression
> Plus. Sorry for the inconvenience.

This is B.S. because their own manual, two years old now, says how to extract files from LZH/LHA archives.

I'll be happy to provide a sample LZH file to prove my claim, to them or anyone else. It extracts just fine with lha255.exe.

Mike

p.s. I've heard that ZipMagic 7.0 is out now... I don't know if this problem as been corrected...


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