I am posting this in MPSIMS because it is truly a mundane question, but it has me frustrated beyond belief. I bought a tax program and managed to download it. Hurray for me. Now when I click on it, it says it is zipped. Whatever. So I click the unzip button–even I can do that. It says it sucessfully unzipped, but now what??? How do I open it so that I can fill in all the little boxes and pay my dang taxes??
I know the answer is simple and I am embarassed to have to post this, but it is either humble myself or tax evasion.
We don’t want tax evasion! :o The trick is to figure out where all the files unzipped to. I don’t know what your knowledge level is so sorry if this is a little basic but:
When something’s “zipped”, it means that there is one or more files that have been squished together into one smaller package. Kinda like the cube that comes out of a trash compactor. When you unzip something, it “uncompacts” them somewhere, so you have the individual files again.
I don’t know what method you used to unzip the files, but what I would suggest is do whatever you did again. Somewhere in the process it’ll have to say something like “Unzipping files to C:\Windows\Temp”. Write that down. Go to Windows Explorer (click on start menu, then program files, then Windows Explorer. Navigate to wherever the path was (c:\windows…etc) and you should find the files that were unzipped. One of them should be “install” or “setup”. Double click that, and you should be in business.
Fenris, or as I like to think of you, The Genuis Who Saved My Sanity (TGWSMS), if someone asks a question as basic as mine, don’t worry about your answer being too basic.
Thank you so much. I was able to follow your instructions and now am about to start filing. Given that you have saved me once this morning, can I come to you for tax advice or a loan as well? After all, you seem to be a helpful guy.
Really, I appreciate your help. I was at my wit’s end. Not a particularly long trip, but unpleasant nonetheless.
Ok, TGWSMS, I have another stupid question. Turns out I can’t file electronically. Some garbage about being a part year resident. They are happy to print the files for me, only problem is…I don’t have a printer. Generally, when I need to print something, I put the word file on disc and take it to work or attach it as a file and email it. Any chance of that working with this taxcut program?
Probably not; you’d need to take the entire Tax Cut program with you, and if you are on a PC (and maybe even on a Mac) you’d actually have to install it on the machine, which might not go over too well with the owners of the machine from which you intent to print. I recommend:
a) Select a printer driver for a PostScript printer. Yeah, I know you don’t HAVE a printer, PostScript or otherwise, but don’t worry about that right now. Examples of PostScript printers are HP LaserJet (PS) and Apple LaserWriter (PS).
b) Go through the motions of printing, but check the little check-box that says “Print to file”. Save the file to a floppy disk, or to your Desktop for transfer to a floppy later.
c) Take floppy disk to somebody who has a printer + one of the following pieces of software:
Adobe Illustrator
Macromedia Freehand
Adobe Acrobat (the full version, not just the free Acrobat Reader)
GhostScript (free)
Any of these four can directly open and print a PostScript file. There are probably others that can as well. Anyway, the printout you’ll get will be EXACTLY what you would have gotten had you been hooked up to a real printer (good quality high resolution etc).
A typical photocopy-and-computer-printouts place like Kinko’s will probably have Illustrator and/or Freehand loaded on some of their machines.
