PowerZip 6.5

For Immediate Release

Contact: Dimitri Ternovski, E-mail: dimitrit@tridentsw.com
Ph: +61 408 554 635, Fax: +61 3 8621 8925

PowerZip Continues To Offer an Attractive Alternative to WinZip

Trident Software Pty Ltd is pleased to announce the release of PowerZip 6.5, a new version of its PowerZip file compression tool for Windows. PowerZip offers an alternative user interface and a comprehensive set of features fit for today's archiving needs.

With WinZip remaining the most common Windows compression utility and with the introduction of built-in Zip file support in Microsoft Windows XP, a compression application must offer a significantly different and attractive alternative to survive in the overcrowded market. Trident Software believes PowerZip continues to offer such an alternative.

Convenience and Simplicity
PowerZip's Compression and Extraction Wizards attempt to reconcile the often conflicting goals of providing a user interface that is convenient and potent while at the same time simple and easy to use.

The Wizards hide much of the complexity of archives behind a clean, stylish interface that should be easy to understand even for people inexperienced with compression.

Wizards (and other essential dialog boxes) offer pop-up tooltips that explain the purpose of each button. The tooltips appear if the mouse is pointed at a button for more than a brief period of time - with PowerZip, getting help doesn't require even a single click. Of course, should more detailed information be required, an online help file is also included.

The Welcome dialog box (can be switched off) has tips for getting started with PowerZip and contains links to the documentation, including the Getting Started tutorial. Common tasks can be initiated directly from the Welcome dialog box.

While simplicity and ease of use are essential, it is also vitally important for the user interface to be convenient for everyday usage and provide easy access to advanced features and options when required. Trident Software believes that PowerZip's Wizards meet these requirements.

PowerZip's Compression and Extraction Wizards are very brief and the number of screens is kept to a minimum. Certain Wizard screens (such as the Welcome screen) can also be switched off as the user becomes more familiar with PowerZip. The Finish button is available as soon as minimum required information has been collected, allowing the Options step to be skipped when not needed.

In fact, with the optional screens turned off, the number of clicks required to accomplish most common tasks through PowerZip's Wizards is comparable to, and in some cases less than, that of programs which do not offer wizards.

Other time-saving features in PowerZip include integration with Windows that makes it possible to zip files and folders, unzip one or several archives and split a file (new in v6.5) directly from the right-click menu in Windows Explorer (My Computer).

Interoperability with Unix Made Easy
With growing popularity of Linux and other Unix flavors as desktop and server platforms, many users will appreciate PowerZip's built-in support for Unix archive formats. PowerZip has long been able to unzip Tar, Gz, and Z archives, common under Unix. With the release of version 6.5, PowerZip can now create Tar/Gz files - a feature that is typically lacking in other archive programs, including WinZip. PowerZip creates a .Tar.Gz (TGZ) file in one step, eliminating the need to apply Tar and Gzip separately.

Standards-Based Support for Archives and Archiving Features
While Zip might be the most common archive format for the PC platforms, many alternative formats exist, offering additional features and in some cases, better compression. PowerZip supports a wide variety of archive formats - Zip, Cab, Ace, Rar, Tar, Gz, Z, Lzh, Arj, Ha and Jar.

New in version 6.5 is the ability to create multi-part archives directly on the hard drive, without the use of a removal drive (like a floppy drive). Unlike WinZip (which uses a non-standard extension to the Zip specification for its split Zip files), PowerZip's multi-part archive feature uses standard Cab files. Cab is a Microsoft format that is widely supported by archive programs and can be unzipped natively (without any 3rd-party applications) under recent versions of Windows. Cab standard directly supports multi-part archives. Consequently, multi-part archives created by PowerZip can be opened universally under Windows and do not require a specific archive program.

About Trident Software
Based in Melbourne (Australia), Trident Software Pty Ltd is dedicated to providing quality software products and services at affordable prices to customers worldwide. Trident Software Pty Ltd has been providing PowerZip since 1997.

System Requirements
PowerZip 6.5 runs under Winnows 9x, Windows Me, Windows NT 4.0, Windows 2000 or Windows XP. PowerZip requires LHA, ARJ and HA programs to work with the corresponding types of archives.

Availability
The price of one copy of PowerZip is $20 (US), which includes technical support via e-mail and unlimited upgrades. Quantity discounts and discounts for government and non-profit organizations are available. A fully functional evaluation copy of PowerZip can be downloaded from Trident Software's web site: www.tridentsw.com/general/downloads/powerzipsetup.exe

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Editors: A full version of PowerZip 6.5 is available upon request.

WinZip, Microsoft, Windows and other trademarks mentioned in this press release are the property of their respective owners and may be trademarks or registered trademarks in the United States and other countries.

Information about WinZip, a product of WinZip Computing Inc, is based on WinZip 8.1 (latest version available at the time of writing) and is provided to the best of our knowledge.