How Do I Know if I Have an ISO File?

If you download a file formatted according to the ISO image standard, it will use the .iso file extension. While you should be able to determine the contents of the file based on a thoughtful user’s naming convention, this type of file can be a copy of anything from an install disc to a hit movie from a brand-new DVD. In most cases, the organization of the contents requires the recipient to burn the data to a disc before using it. However, in this age of digital transfers, burning a disc is often a wasteful and unnecessary task.

How Can I Use an ISO File Without Burning a Disc?

Instead of creating a throw-away disc, use 7-Zip to open the ISO file on your desktop. From here, you can decide to use it, toss it, or burn it to a disc to keep forever.

To extract individual files, follow these steps using the 7-Zip utility:

1. Download and install 7-Zip if you don’t already have it on your computer.
2. Locate the ISO image, right click, select “7-Zip,”, and select “Open archive.”
3. Review the resulting screen showing the contents of the ISO image.
4. Select the desired files and click “Extract” to move them to the target folder.
5. From the target folder, you can use the individual files in any way you choose.

Extract the Entire ISO Image Quickly and Easily with 7-Zip

To extract the entire ISO image to a folder on your computer, simply choose “Extract files” instead of “Open archive” in step two above and skip steps three and four. To make life even easier, associate all ISO image file type with the 7-Zip extract process by going to the “Tools -> option” menu and selecting the “System” tab. The option should be clearly labeled, and, once enabled, allows you to process an ISO image file using a simple double-click maneuver.

This is just one more way that the completely-free, open-source project known as 7-Zip archiver can make your life just a little bit easier. By opening ISO images without burning a disc, processing the included files becomes easier and more eco-friendly. Have you downloaded your copy of 7-Zip compression software yet?

Image via Wikipedia

Are you interested in exactly how efficiently the 7-Zip compression utility will work on your computer? If you are, simply run the included benchmark feature to measure the current performance. To find this option, open the 7-Zip file manager and click on the “Tools” pull-down menu at the top of the screen. As soon as you choose “Benchmark,” the performance tool starts up on a new screen. At any point, it can be stopped or restarted by clicking the appropriate button in the upper right corner.

What does it tell Me?

On the screen, you’ll see two boxes in the middle of the screen along with a smaller one near the bottom. The top box gives statistics for compressing files, the middle for decompressing files, and the bottom provides total numbers. The following values are in each section:

• Speed – Measured in kilobytes per second, this value indicates how fast your files can be compressed or decompressed.
• CPU Usage – This column shows how much of the CPU is being used as a percentage. Note that the value can go over 100% if you’re using more than one CPU thread. To get the actual average use, divide the percentage by the number of CPU threads shown near the top left of the screen.
• Rating/Usage – This value represents the rating in MIPS (million instructions per second) as if you were using 100% of a single CPU.

Note that the total ratings are an average of the compression and decompression figures.

Can I Make Adjustments?

Other than starting and stopping the benchmark program, there are only two values that can be modified on the Benchmark screen:

• Dictionary Size – Change this number to increase or decrease the amount of memory available for use.
• Number of CPU Threads – This number can be adjusted up or down based on the number of available threads. While you can adjust it down to one regardless of your configuration, it does no good to set it higher than the available CPU threads.

How are the Numbers Calculated?

The compression speeds and ratings are highly dependent on the properties of the individual computer’s memory or RAM. On the other hand, the decompression speeds and ratings are based more on the CPU integer operations.

The 7-Zip compression routine also verifies the entire process and checks for the possibility of errors. Most errors indicate that your Ram has a defect. If this is the case, you should look for another compression utility because this issue could cause 7-zip to lose data.

Although the benchmark statistics are very accurate, the calculations are based on the results of an Intel Core 2 CPU without using the multi-threading option. Modern units made by Intel or AMD will be measured accurately, but the numbers won’t be an exact measurement for older chips or for chips with the multi-threading option turned on.

The 7-Zip program is a free, open-source program used worldwide for file compression and decompression. Download 7-Zip software today.

System

On this tab, associate 7-Zip with files that have specific extensions. For example, if you want to automatically use 7-Zip to decompress all files ending with .zip, check off the “zip” box. If you’d like to associate 7-Zip with all file extensions shown, simply click the “Select all” button near the bottom of the screen.

7-Zip

This tab displays 7-Zip’s unique features including:

• Integrate 7-Zip to shell context menu – Check this option to use 7-Zip when right-clicking files on file names outside of the File Manager.
• Cascaded context menu – Check this option to show a 7-Zip submenu when right-clicking a file. Otherwise, all 7-Zip menu items are listed directly on the first menu.
• Context menu items – Check each command you would like to see on the context menu.

Folders

Set this option to specify the folders 7-Zip uses for internal purposes – not the folders your compressed or decompressed files reside or will reside in. Most users don’t ever change the default values on this tab and simply allow 7-Zip software to continue to use temp folders. Changing this setting could slow 7-Zip’s performance.

Editor

On this tab, you can change the default settings for the editor in the following options:

• Editor – This specifies the path 7-Zip should use when activating the editor (F4).
• Diff – This specifies the path 7-Zip should use when activating the file comparison utility. This useful feature compares two files and shows the differences.

Settings

The settings tab allows you to select and deselect a few more 7-Zip options including:

• Show “…” item – Adds additional items to the file list.
• Show real file icons – Shows enhanced file icons in the file list – this can slow 7-Zip if checked.
• Show system menu – Adds a System sub-menu under the File menu.
• Full row select – Select all subitems along with the original item.
• Show grid lines – Adds gridlines to clearly identify items and subitems.
• Single-click to open an item – Check this value if you’d like to open a file or folder within the 7-Zip File Manager with a single click.
• Alternative selection mode – When checked, your selection mark stays after you move the cursor in the 7-Zip File Manager.
• Use Large Memory Pages – Only works with Windows 2003 or the XP x64 operating systems. It allows 7-Zip to use larger pages to boost compression speed, but the necessary allocation can cause 7-Zip to pause when compression starts.

Languages

Non-native-speaking English users can change their language preference on this tab. Over 70 languages and dialects are available.

As you can see, 7-Zip is an extremely flexible and useful program. Download 7-Zip compression software today and find out for yourself. What options have you set?

1. Select by Type

How many times have you went into a big directory and sorted by file type because you just knew there was a certain PDF or DOC file in there? If you’re like most users who don’t obsessively organize their file folders, it’s probably a frequent occurrence. With 7-Zip file compression software, you can simply “Select By Type” and all files with the chosen file extension will be highlighted.

To activate this option, choose “Select By Type” from the “Edit” pull-down menu or use the “Alt +” shortcut. By default, all files with the same extension as the first file in the list will be highlighted. If you’d like to search for a different extension, simply click on any file with that specific suffix and activate “Select By Type” again. 7-Zip also has a similar “Deselect By Type” function that reverses the process; the shortcut for this command is “Alt –.”

So, what do you do with this little trick? Of course, it makes finding a specific file a little bit easier, but it also has another use. Want to simply archive all your Word documents or PDF files? Now, you can do just that without any further filtering.

2. Changing the View

We’re all used to changing our view of a directory to use large or small icons, to use a list format, or display with full details. 7-Zip provides this functionality, but it also goes one step further; it allows users to set their preference to pre-sort the file names in one of five favorite orders: name, type, date, size, or unsorted.

While most people go with name 99% of the time, it’s nice to know you can quickly change to date, type, or size when you need to. Of course, depending on your standard mode of operation, you might want use one of the less popular methods all the time.

Again, 7-Zip tries to make it as easy as possible. Instead of going into the “View” pull-down, you can re-sort file names with the press of a few buttons. Here are the shortcuts for each sort method:

• Name – CTRL+F3
• Type – CTRL+F4
• Date – CTRL+F5
• Size – CTRL+F6
• Unsorted – CTRL+F7

If all this sounds like basic stuff to you, it is. Because 7-Zip compression software is so user-friendly, options like these are very intuitive and easy to find. However, many users never take that extra second to look for useful little features like these. Next time you use this product, take a look around and let us know about your favorite feature.

The 7-Zip Solution

This open-source compression utility offers an easy solution to a very common problem. When the right parameters are set, it breaks down a huge file into smaller ones based on the user’s requirements. Amazingly, when all the component archives are opened together, 7-Zip knows exactly how to put them all back together again. In fact, once the decompression routine is complete, no one would be able to tell the file had ever been archived.

How to Split Large Files with 7-Zip

Like most other useful 7-Zip features, the split function is simple and straightforward. Follow these steps, and no file will ever be too large to process:

1. If you haven’t used 7-Zip archiver before, download and install this feature-packed utility.
2. Locate the file to be archived in Windows Explorer or a similar program.
3. Right-click the filename, choose “7-Zip” from the first list, and “Add to archive” from the second one. This opens the “Add to Archive” options screen.
4. Fill in “Archive,”  “Archive Format,” and “Split to volumes, bytes” values. “Archive” is the name of the compressed file, “Archive Format” specifies the compression format, and “Split to volumes, bytes” tells the 7-Zip utility the maximum size of each component file. Let’s take a look at an example.  A 20 MB pdf file compresses to 7 MB using the 7z format. If 2 MB is specified in the “Split to volumes, bytes” parameter, four archive files will be created during the compression process.
5. Click “OK” to start the archival process.
6. Once the archival process is complete, the next display shows the resulting files. Note the sequence number added to the end of the file.

Putting It All Back Together

Now that the file is split into several smaller pieces, it’s time to make sure 7-Zip can put them all back together again. This process is even easier. Follow these simple steps to reassemble the original data:

1. Locate the multiple, small 7-Zip files.
2. Select the file with the “001” extension, right-click, choose 7-Zip, and, then, choose “Open Archive.”
3. 7-Zip runs to combine the multiple, smaller files into the single, larger file in its original format.

By taking advantage of this useful 7-Zip software feature, even novice users can make size restrictions a problem of the past. Download 7-Zip software today to discover the strengths of open-source code.

• 7z
• XZ
• BZIP2
• GZIP
• TAR
• ZIP
• WIM

And unpack even more including:

• ARJ
• CAB
• CHM
• CPIO
• CramFS
• DEB
• DMG
• FAT
• HFS
• ISO
• LZH
• LZMH
• MTR
• MSI
• NSIS
• NTFS
• RAR
• RPM
• SquashFS
• UDF
• VHD
• WIM
• XAR
• Z

Surprisingly, 7-Zip can create Zip files more efficiently than either PKZip or WinZip. When compared, 7-Zip offers a compression ratio that’s two to 10% better than either of these older utilities. However, 7-Zip’s real advantage isn’t apparent until it’s used for its original purpose: to create archive files in the ultra-compressed 7z format.

Comparing Compression Ratios

The 7-Zip developers tested their product to prove that it was a superior program compared to other compression routines. To accomplish this task, they chose two extremely large and well-known applications: Mozilla Firefox and Google Earth. Let’s take a look at the results of this very interesting test.

Mozilla Firefox includes 161 files for a total of 15,684,168 bytes. This list details the results produced by 7-Zip and other compression utilities:

• 7-Zip version 4.23 using the 7z format created a compressed file with a size of 4,621,135 bytes (just under 30% of the original size) with a 100% compression ratio.
• WinRar 3.50 using the rar format created a compressed file with a size of 5,021,556 bytes with a 109% compression ratio.
• 7-Zip version 4.23 using the zip format created a compressed file with a size of 6,222,627 bytes with a 135% compression ratio.
• WinZip version 10.0 beta (maximum portable) created a compressed file in the zip format with a size of 6,448,666 with a 140% compression ratio – note that this file is slightly larger than 7-Zip’s zip-formatted results.

Google Earth includes 115 files for a total of 25,530,652 bytes. This list is similar to the previous one:

• 7-Zip software version 4.23 using the 7z format created a compressed file with a size of 6,109,183 bytes (just under 26% of the original size) with a 100% compression ratio.
• WinRar 3.50 using the rar format created a compressed file with a size of 6,824,892 bytes with a 112% compression ratio.
• 7-Zip version 4.23 using the zip format created a compressed file with a size of 8,909,446 bytes with a 146% compression ratio.
• WinZip version 10.0 beta (maximum portable) created a compressed file in the zip format with a size of 9,153,898 with a 150% compression ratio – again, note that this file is slightly larger than 7-Zip’s zip-formatted results.

Although testing results will vary depending on the data used in each example, these results illustrate the fact that the 7-Zip download is not only an efficient archival tool when using its proprietary format, but also even better than many other programs when converting to their preferred convention.

Skip those Irritating Options

Many users turn to online storage methods or external hard drives when they run low on space. While both of these options are feasible and affordable, there is a little bit of an annoyance factor with both. If your Internet connection is down or your external HD fails, you won’t be able to get to that old movie you just remembered you had to watch tonight. Even if everything is working perfectly, it can be a bit of a pain to constantly move files around as you tire of this one and decide you want to listen to that one.

7-Zip as a Viable Solution

An alternative solution is to archive these large multi-media files into an ultra-compressed format using the 7-Zip utility. Not only will this save space, but it can provide an exceptional organizational method. Concerned that this will waste your valuable viewing or listening time? Don’t be. 7-Zip can compress and de-compress your files in record time. There’s also no need to worry about corrupted files. This open-source program does an excellent job of making sure everything is reconstructed perfectly.

Organizing Your Media Files

While it’s tempting to use either the one-file-per-archive method or the I’ll-dump-it-all-in-one-folder strategy, don’t be so fast to jump in. This archival method provides the perfect opportunity to put a little thought into your file-organization habits. Although you could create archives alphabetically, by artist, or by genre, the professional way is to create a discography or filmography.

The Discography Method

For music files, this is definitely the way to go. Although you can modify this basic plan to meet your individual needs, the following steps will get you started:

1. Create a directory for the artist or band.
2. Create a subdirectory for each album.
3. Store the individual song titles under the appropriate album directory.
4. Use 7-Zip software at the artist/band directory level to create a discography file.
5. Move the 7z archive to your Music directory.
6. It’s now safe to delete the full versions of each song as well as the directories to recover space and simplify your file structure.

The Filmography Method

A filmography is a little iffier because most movies have more than one popular actor. However, there’s nothing that says you can’t file your favorite Terminator movie under both Arnold movies and Sci-Fi thrillers. Depending on your tastes, set up filmographies for favorite actors, film genres, release dates, or even in alphabetical order.

As you begin to use this simple archival program to organize your files, you’ll find more and more ways that 7-Zip file compression software can make your life a little easier.

Use 7-Zip Portable on Public Machines

If you need to use a public or shared computer, installations may be restricted or frowned upon. With this portable app, this never presents a problem. Simply connect your portable media to the public machine to process your files. When you’re done, no one will be the wiser, and the machine has no lasting modifications. Of course, if you send or receive zipped files using your personal or corporate email address on a public computer, remember to erase all traces of your user-id and passwords. Although the portable 7-zip program is very reliable, it can’t work miracles.

Handy for Business Presentations

Just like you shouldn’t install any program permanently on a shared machine, you would never consider doing so on a client’s computer. Sometimes, it’s simply easier to place your presentation materials on a flash drive or CD that will slip easily in your pocket than lugging a laptop around a busy airport. However, unzipping files can be a sticking point if your business partner doesn’t have a compatible program installed at his site. With 7-zip portable software, this problem disappears. Everything you need to get that contract signed is on your flash drive. If your presentation works as smoothly as this little app, you’ll definitely land the client.

Works with a Variety of Platforms

Unlike some other programs, 7-zip software works with a variety of portable devices, host platforms, and language choices. If you or your client is from a non-English speaking country, you might feel right at home with one of the 74 different localization options. Of course, since this is an open source program, you’re welcome to create a newly-translated version in any language that’s missing from the list.

Of course, these are just a few ways this flexible, open source program can be used. How many ways can you think of to use 7-zip portable?

Start-Off With the GUI Version of 7-Zip

If you’re not already familiar with 7-Zip, spend a little bit of time using the GUI-based version. Set up a few test files in a new directory and try out the various options. You’ll be surprised at how little time it takes to learn this product inside and out! Although the command-line utility is equally simple, most users catch on a little quicker when they can recognize the features they’ve already seen in the visual representation of 7-Zip.

Running 7-Zip Manually from the Command Prompt

Although non-developers are more comfortable with a pretty little window and clickable command icons, nothing feels more like home than a command prompt and a blank screen to a hard-core programmer. Although he’ll use a GUI when forced, it’s never his tool of choice. Once you try it, you might even agree! Instead of clicking through option after option, you simply enter the command at the prompt with the relevant commands to get the same results in a single step instead of going through multiple clicks and choices.

7-Zip Command Line Syntax

While you don’t need to fill in every single parameter, the basic syntax for running the 7-Zip utility at the command line looks like this:

• 7za command  [switch] archive name [file_name] [@listfiles]
• Commands tell the 7za utility what action to take. Valid values are “a” for archive, “d” for delete, “e” for extract, “l” for list, “t” for test, “u” for update, and “x” for extract with full-path name. The 7za utility requires a command.
• Switches tell the 7za utility how to compress the files. If this value is omitted, 7za defaults the compression protocol to the 7z method. The most commonly used switch is the “m” type that varies from “mx0” for a straight copy with no compression to “mx9” for ultra compression for the smallest possible result. Additional switch types include “t”, “o”, “p”, “s”, “v”, “w”, and “ao”.
• Archive name is the directory path. This value must be specified and can be defined from the root or from the current location where the utility is executed. For archival commands, this is the destination of the compressed files. For all other commands, the files must be stored in this directory.
• File names can be specified for selective processing or omitted to allow the command to process all files in the directory.

This is just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to the power of the command-level 7-Zip file-compression software!

• Email contacts
• Saved Favorites
• RSS Feeds
• Saved Passwords
• Game Saves

There is still so much more to think about. However, if you can manage to get into your system at all, even through safe mode, you may be able to retrieve some of these items. Also, remember that if your system has crashed due to a virus or outside corruption, saving any of these files may be bringing them with you. Do not put any of the files back onto a freshly formatted drive without using virus and malware scanning tools first.

Unstable Systems

If your system is just experiencing unstable activity that you know will eventually cause a format, you are lucky. Get out your 7zip utility and start compressing those files, then send them to a save external hard drive or flash drive. 7-Zip compression software can help you during this unstable time.

Crashing Systems

If your system is already experiencing crashes and you are having difficulty logging on, attempt to boot in safe mode by pressing the required key for your system (usually F8 or the Delete key) while the system is booting up. Once you have entered safe mode, you can begin to compress and send your files to a safe place using 7-Zip software.

Although this is absolutely a last ditch effort, quite often you can save at least a few key files before the unstable system crashes for good. Saving the files in compression form will not only allow you to save more to your external or flash drive device, but will also give you an easy organized order to inspecting, virus scanning, and investigating those files before you transfer them back to your newly formatted drive. Download 7-Zip software today and find out how it can help you in emergency situations.