On starting the WIZARD these four methods progress from form to form with you having to make minimal selections of the METHOD, other than which FILES to work with and the AREA to save the files to during the process. When files or an area are needed for selection Zip Magic offers a directory tree much like Windows Explore for you to use in the selections. Zip Wizard is so easy and straightforward that no HELP is offered or needed to do the four methods that it allows you to do.

Zip Tools is completely different and starts with a look very similar to Windows Explorer but with added features useful in file management. Not only can you perform the four methods that the Wizard allows, but you can also perform Find Files, Copy Disk, Format Disk, Create Folders, Delete Files and about anything else you would want to do. There is the option to view individual files with a FILE VIEWER that opens most common file types, and they offer to sell you an optional viewer which they say will open any file format for viewing. These features again are easy to use and to understand for anyone familiar with file manipulations and Windows Explorer. HELP is offered here, and it appears to be extensive from its Table of Contents. Zip Tools allows you to work on individual files which have been Zipped, and ZipMagic will make the necessary changes and keep the file in a Zip format. You don’t have to go through the process of manually unzipping the file, then making the necessary changes and then re-zipping the file. Both the Wizard and Tools perform Disk-Spanning when creating Zip files and moving the files to floppy drives.

Zip Magic has another feature that allow you to easily zip files and attach them to e-mail when using MS EXCHANGE, MS OUTLOOK, or OUTLOOK EXPRESS. It adds an icon button to the toolbar template so you just push one button to attach files. You have control of cache size used and compression speed through the properties, so it has been friendly to use. There is also an " Easy Update " feature in Zip Tools that allows quick and accurate access to Mijenix Corporation.

The only feature that I am still getting used to is that if you load the program at START UP it will be working in the background until you disable it. This causes Zip Magic to operate with your settings at ALL TIMES. As an example, if your settings show ZIP FILES AS FOLDERS: Say you download a Zip file from the Internet and give it a folder to save to on your hard drive, and you go to view it in Windows Explorer. The file will be shown as a FOLDER with all the individual files that were included when it was created as a Zip. If you have used Zip programs, you know that by showing the individual files you pretty much are Unzipping to get the file information and this takes TIME. Sometimes the Zip Magic emblem appears in the upper left of your monitor showing that it is working to correctly show Zip files, but at other times you get no emblem and you start to think that your computer has FROZEN. This lag in time also occurs when any Zipped file is being used, such as using OUTLOOK EXPRESS, which stores E-MAIL messages as compressed files, or when using Norton Anti-Virus to scan Zip files.

I am pleased with the program and how easy it is to use and have stopped using Windows Explorer for file management and have been using Zip Tools instead. Zip Tools gives me additional tools that save me time and provide greater flexibility than did Windows Explorer. u