How do I Unzip a File in Windows?

How do I Unzip a File in Windows?

I have a file, and I can't seem to open it. It has an ending on it that says .zip. What do I do with this file? You need to download an Unzip utility program from the web. The best place to find such a program is on www.download.com. [figure 1] Do a quicksearch for the program winzip and select the option that works with your operating system. The 32bit program is for Win95 and the 16bit program is for Win3.x. For the newest version you can go to WINZIP.

Click on the file that you need to take you to the download area. If you are not familiar with how to download a file, please read the How do I Download a File? section in our how to document area on our web page.


Once you have downloaded the file, you need to install it. Navigate to the directory that you saved it in (can't find it? Try the find file tab on the start menu or the search command on the file menu for our Win3.x users. Search for the file wz*.exe exactly as it is written here.) By double clicking on the file, it will automatically begin the installation process. Read the onscreen messages and push the next button as it is needed throughout the installation. One of your options will be if you want to use Winzip classic or Winzip wizard. You want to pick Winzip classic, otherwise your screens will NOT look like the examples below. When the program finishes the installation, you should now have an icon for the Winzip program you just installed. Double click on the icon for Winzip and you should see the screen below. [figure 2]


figure 1

 

 

 

 

 

 
figure 2


Notice how the bottom of the screen states: Choose 'New' to create or 'Open' to open an archive? Well since we want to open a file that we have, click on open. This automatically takes us to the folder Winzip which has one .zip file in it. To find the file you just unzipped, click on the down arrow and navigate the tree to the folder where you saved the .zip file. For this tutorial, we will use the file in the WinZip folder. The name of this file should appear as example.zip and should look like the picture below. [figure 3]

 
figure 3

Double click on the Example.zip file and it will show you the contents of that file, seen below. [figure 4]


Now, how do you get these files that are compressed into the example.zip file? Hold down your control key and press the forward slash button (/) simultaneously. You should have all the files above highlighted in blue. Now press the extract button.

Your screen should look like the one below. [figure 5]

If you know where you want to put the file, type in the location name in the box that currently reads 'C:\Program Files\WinZip'. If you don't know where you want to place the file, make up a name and type it in that box after the 'C:\'. For our example, we will name the directory the same as the .zip file. So our box will now show 'C:\Example'. Now click on the Extract button located at the top right of the box and you will extract the files into the directory you specified.


So now what? Depending on the file you download, you may have a setup file you need to run, or perhaps a document file that needs to be read. If you don't know which type of file you have, consult our Glossary section in our How To area on our webpage.


figure 4

 

 

 
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