«

[Adamg]

Oh. Well, add my vote to the yay side. With a front page notice, and a sticky in every part of the forum, the questions would hopefully be reduced enough to not be too annoying. :worried:

[bobson]

Is there a program to work with 7zip archives that works under DOS ??

[Doink]

What could be done is one or two of the most popular downloads .zip files could be replaced by 7zip files as a trial and see what feed back we get or the next couple of games updates could be in 7zip, format if it causes to much trouble then we stick with .zip


Edit: For this to work 7zip utilities will have to be available on this site (Windows and DOS versions)

[Adamg]

Yep, it comes with a command line program. It's called 7z.exe. There's a full stand-alone command line program also included called 7za.exe, which can run by itself. :amused: I don't know if those can compress too, or if they are just for decompression. I would recommend compressing in Windows, ect.

Edit:

That sounds like a good idea, Doink. Also, perhaps there could be a poll done, where only VIPs or higher could vote, as to whether or not to try that? I suppose it would have to be a manual poll, since to my knowledge the automatic polls can't take into account rank. Or can they? I would imagine converting the top 10 most popular downloads to .zip would be a good test, if that were to be done.

[_r.u.s.s.]

what's the point? it's not that we hosted 2 GB images or something
the better compression wouldn't bring as much advantage as trouble. zip is older and more stuff supports it, and even if you install pure xp and don't have anything yet there is also default zip uncompressor

[Eagle of Fire]

I am fairly certain that if you make a poll with only the VIP able to answer, most of us will answer yes readily. Me included. This is really not the point though since nobody else than Kosta and the admins have a say in the matter. And of course, Kosta is weighing way more in the balance too. So, unless Kosta changed his mind since the last time...

The whole point here is: Even if we were to offer two downloads, one with .zip and another for 7zip... There would be a lot of computer knowledgable people who will be pleased to download the 7zip version. But 90%+ of the downloads, those made by people who don't know better, won't even bother to try to discover what 7zip is and will download the .zip version anyways. If we switch all the .zip files to 7zip, most of those 90%+ people will complain that they can't do anything with that "strange file" they downloaded and will either not bother further or flood the troubleshooting forum with stupid questions. Those who won't bother further might be people we are trying to reach out about old games, people who might have joined the rest of this group in the preservation of said games.

It's a good idea, but in the long run it's unfortunatly pretty much a loss/loss situation.

[Mighty Midget]

Whatever AB do now, I think that with the number of bugs still not sorted out, any changes that make things more complicated are not a good idea. If AB decides to change the zips to 7zip, they should wait until AB gets back into the top position as a user friendly site.

[Juanca]

Originally Posted by Mighty Midget

Whatever AB do now, I think that with the number of bugs still not sorted out, any changes that make things more complicated are not a good idea. If AB decides to change the zips to 7zip, they should wait until AB gets back into the top position as a user friendly site.

totally agree with you.

[Japo]

Originally Posted by bob-satan

Is there a program to work with 7zip archives that works under DOS ??

I think RAR supports 7zip and it has a DOS version.

[Doink]

Quote:
Originally Posted by Doink
... this will force people to use the 7zip format ...

Originally Posted by dosraider

Djees man, you're worst than MS + Mac + Sony together.
*Force* people .... :mad:
It's not because YOU like an application you're suddenly entitled to force it upon others.

Even if I also have 7Zip -(yes, indeed)- I wouldn't dream to shovel it down in other peeps troaths.

Talk about it, propose it, advise it, yes, but force ? No way josé.

What's next? 8Zippy that's again a bit (0.05%) better?
9Zippy? (0.02%) better?

Apologies
...this will encourage people to use the 7zip format...

Edit: 7zip claim to have a 50% to 60% better compression ratio than traditional zip so its a major step.