New and improved PKZip 2.5 for Windows still does the job. (PKWare) (Software Review)(Brief Article)(Evaluation)

PKZip 2.5 for Windows

   PKWare   9025 N. Deerwood Dr.   Brown Deer, WI 53223   414-354-8699   fax: 414-354-8559   http://www.pkware.com   

Requires: 4MB RAM (Windows 3.1) or 8MB RAM (Windows 95); 1MB hard drive space

List Price: $49

From the beginning of the desktop computing revolution, file-compression utilities have helped reduce the disk space required to store and transfer files. PKZip set the technical standard for these utilities, and with the release of PKZip 2.5 for Windows, it's now easier to use than ever.

This update includes versions for Windows 3.1 and Windows 95. The latter version finally supports Windows 95's long filenames--previously PKZip truncated long filenames to fit DOS's naming convention of eight characters with a three-character extension.

This version of PKZip sports a nicely streamlined interface. Creating a compressed Zip archive is as simple as selecting the files and clicking a button; your archive can include files from multiple directories. The program enables you to affix a password to a Zip file, and to create self-extracting archives that you can uncompress without a separate utility. You can also create Zip files that span multiple floppy disks.

PKZip supports five levels of compression. Selecting tighter compression requires slightly more time for zipping and unzipping; on our 90MHz Pentium test machine, the time difference was negligible.

PKZip can display the contents of compressed archives, with columns showing information such as the creation date and the size of each file. You can sort these contents according to any column category. To copy or move files from one Zip archive to another, you must click on the menu options--PKZip doesn't support drag and drop between archives. But you can drag uncompressed files from Windows Explorer to a compressed archive.

Double-clicking on a file in the content list of a Zip archive launches the file and its associated application. And you can uncompress an entire archive at once if you need to, or only selected files within the archive.

Missing, however, is a wizard to carry you through the compression and decompression process, which is available in Nico Mak Computing's WinZip.

File-compression utilities have become essential tools for Internet users who upload and download files, and for e-mail mavens who send and receive file attachments. PKZip 2.5 for Windows is one of the original compression utilities for the PC. With this latest release, it is also one of the most up-to-date.