Where's my native WIN7 zip utility?

[mset]

I use a music notation software called Finale. It's a huge download because of all the sound files associated with it. It's 1.5 GB.

I'm having some stability issue with the program. The dev told me to reinstall, but didn't like the fact that I was using a third party program to handle zipped files (WinRAR in my case). He said that the download was meant to be handled by WIN7's native zip utility (which seems odd to me but anyhow...). He asked me to uninstall WinRAR and download and extract using the WIN7 native zip utility.

Probelm is... now that I uninstalled WinRAR, the icon in my downloads folder is just a white page with a folded down corner. Going to

Control Panel-->Default Programs-->Associate a File Type or Protocol with a Program

is weird because in the long list of extensions, .zip doesn't appear!

Right clicking on the file (blank white icon) does not give me a choice to 'Extract To' like the dev said it should.

Can anyone tell me where my WIN7 zip utility is and how I go about extracting this file using it? I tried some searches for the answer but can't find anything yet.

 

[lxskllr]

The dev's full of crap. Either the file is good or it isn't. Any competent archiver can handle the extraction. I use and recommend 7Zip, but Winrar works too.

 

[ninaholic37]

The dev's full of crap. Either the file is good or it isn't. Any competent archiver can handle the extraction. I use and recommend 7Zip, but Winrar works too.

Agreed. The Win7 native extractor is the one with the bugs (it can skip some small files without telling you for no reason, then your program won't work). Other zip programs like WinRAR and 7zip will work better. What kind of "dev" has never used WinRAR or 7zip? Especially considering a lot of files they would need to download to develop software might not even be in zip format. :awe:

 

[lxskllr]

Since you're talking to the dev, get a md5sum on the archive, and compare it to what you downloaded. If they don't match, there's no point in going any further. The download's corrupted.

 

[mset]

Yes, I figured that was BS.

Problem is, their line is this

"Install the program using the WIN7 zip utility or else we're not going to support you'.

Actually I think I can get around that if I yell long enough but who wants to go through it. How would they even know what I used?

I've used this program for so long, and it's the behemoth in the industry for complex projects, but more and more people are using Sibelius. Maybe it's time to switch. Anyhow, thanks.

I still would like to know where my WIN7 zip utility is and why I can't see .zip in that list of extensions in the area where I can associate a program with a particular extension.

 

[mset]

Since you're talking to the dev, get a md5sum on the archive, and compare it to what you downloaded. If they don't match, there's no point in going any further. The download's corrupted.

Thanks, I'll talk to the dev about that tomorrow. Their support hours are 9-5.

 

[tynopik]

http://superuser.com/questions/35503/how-to-restore-windows-default-zip-file-functionality

 

[mset]

http://superuser.com/questions/35503/how-to-restore-windows-default-zip-file-functionality

Thanks, that helps. I'll give it a try later tonight.

 

[Mushkins]

I've actually got quite a few .zip archives of pictures that 7zip tells me are 100% corrupted, while the baked in windows 7 zip functionality opens them perfectly fine. I probably just need to update 7zip because I installed it years ago, but it still could be at fault for something like this. I remember for the longest time WinRAR could not open files larger than about 2GB without telling you it was corrupt.

As for the OPs question, just right click the .zip and select Open With > Windows Explorer. There is no utility for it, it's cooked right into explorer, though the "unzip archive" right click context menus were probably disabled/overwritten when 7zip was installed.

 

[Johnny4]

There's a way to unzip with explorer in vbscript, but I've just started using 7-zip Keep, 7z.exe and 7z.dll together.