Extracting files with 7-Zip
Most of the files in binary Usenet newsgroups are compressed archives that have been split into multiple pieces with the following file name structure: name.part01.rar, name.part02.rar, name.part03.rar and so forth. These are RAR files that you can extract with WinRAR but also with the freeware program 7-Zip. That is what we will do in this tutorial. We will not discuss creating archives with 7-Zip in this tutorial: 7-Zip is not able to create these RAR files, but has its own format: .7z. Obviously, when this format becomes more popular this tutorial will be expanded.
The latest version of this program is version 9.04 beta which was released on May 30, 2009.Configuration
Before we start let's change two settings that will make working with 7-Zip easier. In the main screen of 7-Zip click on 'Options...' in the menu 'Tools':
The Options window appears and we are at the tab 'System'. Make sure that at least 'rar' is checked. By doing this we will be able to open RAR files directly from the Windows Explorer.
Now go to the tab 'Plugins', select '7-Zip' and click on the 'Options...' button:
Make sure that the item 'Integrate 7-Zip to shell context menu' is checked. I recommend that you check 'Cascaded context menu' as well. Check or uncheck the other items according to your own preferences. I set them as follows:
Finally press 'OK' to save the changes made to the configuration.
Extracting
In the Windows Explorer right click on the first file (name.part01.rar) of the archive that you want to unpack. So do not select all files of the archive, only the first file. WinRAR will automatically use all other files of that archive for extraction. Notice that only those items are available in the context menu that you checked while configuring.
The meaning of these items:
| Open archive | Opens this archive with 7-Zip. Double clicking on name.part01.rar in the Windows Explorer has the same result. |
| Extract files ... | 7-Zip will ask you in which folder you want the extracted files to be saved. |
| Extract Here | 7-Zip will save the contents of the archive directly to the same folder as the RAR files. |
| Test archive | Checks whether the archive has not been damaged. |
| Add to archive... | Adds files to an existing archive. |
So the easiest and quickest way to extract the files is to choose 'Extract Here'. Now we will demonstrate how 'Open archive' works: 7-Zip will start and you will see the contents of the archive:
Select the files that you want to extract and click on the button 'Extract'. A new window appears where you can enter in which folder the files have to be saved. You can also click on the button with the three dots [...] to easily browse to a folder. Finally click on the 'OK' button.
7-Zip will now extract the files. If you prefer you can hide the progress window (click on the button 'Background'), temporarily pause the operation, or cancel it. If you would cancel the operation, the extracted files will be removed.
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