Just wondering, since it always reminds me that the evaluation period has expired whenever I use it. Does the commercial version offer anything beyond the evaluation?
Nope. Just a clean conscience.
I paid for it a few years back. I have no problems paying reasonable fees for quality software that I will use a lot.
Yup. Paid for it. Twice, for two computers! Did not, however, upgrade, as it was good enough to begin with. Now W-XP has zipping-unzipping bundled right in so did not have to buy it for my new portable. But I still have my W98 desktop running it.
And I’ll join Why a Duck on this: * I have no problems paying reasonable fees for quality software that I will use a lot.*. Heck, I won’t even get up to “a lot” – if you are “always being reminded”, you’re using it often enough to pay up.
jrd
I do tend to pay for software that I use a lot and find useful (I bought CDRWin for example). However, I feel with winzip that it’s every person’s right to be able to uncompress .zip files, since nearly every download off the web is one. If I were to create a lot of zip files, then maybe I would buy it. They should have done things like Adobe does for .pdf files. The reader is free, but to create the files you have to buy the software. But now that I have XP, I can create/unzip the files for nothing since it’s built into Windows Explorer.
I registered my copy (and I registered PKZIP back in my DOS days, too). I can understand c_goat’s point of view about needing an unZIPper, but as a practical matter I also ZIP up files on a regular basis.
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- I paid for ver. 7, but I did use it for a while before I got around to it. I see no reason to upgrade to 8 though. I have a font creation program and a font manager program that I still gotta pay for also.
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- I downloaded an audio signal processor I’ll end up paying for also, and it’s $140. It’s cheap for all the features it has; most of the other comparable programs cost twice as much or more and don’t offer an uncrippled trial period. The other incentive here is that they regularly release new features and plug-ins for it that you can’t get unless you’re a registered purchaser. - DougC
I paid for it. I use it a lot, and I think it’s well worth the cost.
I have paid for it. In fact, I have paid for almost all of the shareware that I use. There is one exception and it is a very old DOS program that I still occasionally use. I tried to pay for it, but could not track down the original author. However, as a software developer myself, I am particularly sensitive to the issue.
I, apparently, am a red headed bastard child of Satan as I have never even thought of registering Winzip, and went so far as to grab a serial to stop the message from popping up. You could also call me a news group baby. Since my soul will go to hell directly to hell and will not pass go, am I able to eat pork with reckless abandon?
Came bundled with my home p.c. My work pays a boatload of money for software. It’s actually one of the few companies that I’ve ever worked at where they actually track how many users and pay the associated fees.
I paid for it way back when it was still up to version 3. I believe in paying for shareware I find very useful, and this is definitely one of those.
I paid for mine.
But I also paid for mIRC, and I am informed that I must be the only person on earth who did THAT.
Whatever, for me it is an issue of sleeping at night. Just me, not saying anyone else is wrong not to pay for stuff you are using.
If I had to pay for all the stuff I download… my computer would have NOTHING on it. I always mean well - “Someday I’ll pay the mIRC folks that twenty bucks!” But I never seem to have the twenty bucks readily available, and not have something more useful to spend it on.
I pay for some shareware, and not for other shareware. I have never paid for Winzip, but I also have XP now, so that’s kind of useful.
I usually pay for the shareware or software that I use for my work, which is getting close to most of it. But if it’s for my own personal use only, then I tend not to pay for it.
Mind you, it’s only recently that I could afford to pay for some of this stuff.
I’d never pay for WinZip, as there’s plenty of FREE software that does it’s job far better than it does:) Heck, XP even makes a ZIP program completely unnecessary, though I keep one around for when I need to do advanced tasks.
I find that there’s a free version of most software that is superior to the pay version, or at least functional enough to be an alternative.
Winzip? Yeah, right. WinRAR is clearly superior. And free.
And back when I used winzip I didn’t bother registering it either 
I have “Windows98 Plus”, and hte “Plus” includes a zip program. And I believe there are some freeware zip programs too.
I have bought CuteFTP, though. And I bought Fetch (ftp program) for my Mac, and a typing program for the Mac, and an Outlook Express archive program (for Mac). I have bought quite a bit of shareware, actually.
The one that was the most dramatic was “CPU Cool”, a small $13 shareware program that is supposed to help processors run cooler. It saved my PC. It had some sort of overheating problem (an alarm was constantly beeping, driving me NUTS). So a friend sent me a copy of CPU Cool. And it WORKS! Well, most of the time. My PC can go HOURS without beeping. My friend told me he’d find a “crack” so I wouldn’t have to pay the $13, but I thought that was completely silly. Not only was it a paltry $13, it literally SAVED my PC, and I am eternally grateful to the software developer because of that. $13 is the least I can do.
I didn’t pay for WinZip (came with the computer). But I DID pay for the Self-Extractor add-on. I do try to do the honest thing with my software, and also with my office’s software (which I’m mostly in charge of). When WinXP came out, my boss had me order two copies of XP Pro and Office XP (one for him for home, and since I wouldn’t let him do it without me, one for me for home - I telecommute once a week, so it was justified.) We don’t use XP at work, yet. One of my coworkers (who is always doing stuff like this) said “Maybe you could make me a copy for home, too.” I took great joy in informing her of the new Microsoft security measures that would make such a copy useless. (She also said, when I mentioned that I’m copying my old vinyl records onto CD, “Oh, maybe when you’re done with yours, you can copy some of mine.” Considering that it takes about an hour per record, I don’t think so.)
I dont think there is one single piece of software on my machine that I paid for. Including a cracked windows xp pro and 2000 advanced server. Name a game, I can find it and download it.
I’m not saying I am proud of this, but being a tech and being surrounded by techs… these things tend to get passed around a lot. I take advantage of it.
Since there’s a ton a good, free zip clones out there, try InfoZip for one, why bother with pop-ups or cracks or whatever.
I’ve “lost” WinZip on my computer at least twice. Installed it, didn’t use it, the shortcuts got munged, didn’t notice for a long time…
BTW: an error was recently found in the standard code used in many LZW based compressors. It’s a real good idea to update whatever decompressors you are using. Since it is used in seemingly unrelated things such as image compression, check the home page for basically all the software you are using for updates. It could be exploited by crackers to do Bad Things to your computer.