Inferno's Basic Winzip Tutorial
by Inferno
I get so many emails a day asking me how to use a decompression program. Most of my readers use Winzip. So here is a Winzip Tutorial for The Winzip Classic. Please read it very carefully and then follow the steps exactly. The Example used is for the game: The 11th Hour and the patches to which it applies, but you can substitute them and adapt this walkthrough for any application.
First, with regard to gaming, I make it a habit that when I purchase an old game (or any one, for that matter) I use the practice of first going on to the internet and doing a search to see if there are any patches. I look to see if there is either a General Developer's Website, Support Page, Games Forum or Review about the game to see if there is a need to search for any Patches. If I find a Patch, Shim or Update for the game I download them all to a special folder I have on my hard drive. Now, you may call this folder anything you like. Mine is located in My Documents and is called simply Game Patches. Then inside this folder I created a separate subfolder for each game. I also keep a blank Notepad page with the name of the game in each of these subfolders for any notes I may want to take. Ex: In my Atlantis I Folder, I have a number of patches and a Notepad page named ATL1notes.txt where I can keep track of what the patches do and where I got them from.
note* This would apply to any program I use, whether its a game or any other application.
In most circumstances, you would first install the game. Then add your patches.
To add the patches, you do this one by one after the initial install.
-
First Go To--> where ever you've saved the patches. If you haven't saved them
anywhere and they are still in your email then
- Go to your email program-->Click on the
attachments one by one and save them somewhere on your system so that you can
easily find them. I've created a folder in My Documents on my computer called Game Patches with sub folders for each game I have. It makes
things a lot easier.
-
So go ahead and save them. The easiest way to do this is to Right Click on the Patch -->Chose Copy-->then Go to your special Patches Folder that you have already created and Right Click anywhere in the folder. Choose Paste. When you've finished this step close out of your email program.
-
Now locate the Patches. For the purposes of this tutorial we'll add The Patch:
11thdri.zip
(a patch for a specific game) to the game The 11th Hour by Trilobyte. Let's say
that you would like to add the "Drivers Patch" to this game. And
let's assume that it has already been downloaded to a special folder on your
hard drive. Double Clicking on this .zip file
will bring up the WinZip Program: The first screen should look something like
this:
note* Sometimes the "patched" has been zipped into a .zip file which will automatically unzip to a predetermined location. It's usually correct so let it.
Click on "Use Evaluation Version" if your using the evaluation version
This window comes up to tell you that it is just an evaluation version. Click OK. There may be other screens which pop up as you open your file... just either click "ok" or "close" until you get to:
This graphic to the left, shows what is contained in the ".zip" after it is
decompressed. This particular file patch contains all the drivers that you need to run the 11th Hour.
You can use the scroll bar on the right of the window to "scroll"
down through the various files to see if there is a "readme.txt" or
.doc file. You may click on those files to read then, as sometimes they can
contain important information about installing and running the
patch.
Click on Extract.
Use the scroll bar on the right to scroll through your programs until you find the right one.
Sometimes your "game folder" might be in a subfolder. Look carefully.
- Another window may appear telling you that it already has some of the files.
If this happens Click "yes to all".
The files have now been updated by the Driver Patch. Click on the
"X" in the top right hand corner of the WinZip
program to exit out of it.
- That really all there is to it.
...as always
Inferno