When you download huge files from the internet, specially those from file sharing sites, these usually are in compressed file formats with .zip, .rar, .tar.gz, .gzip, .bzip, .7z and other file extensions. These are also called archive files. Windows XP and higher versions of Windows can easily pack and unpack .zip files but not the other formats. WinRAR can unpack many of these compressed file formats but this software is commercial, though a trial version of this can be downloaded and used. I am using a software that can decompress most, if not all, of known compressed file formats and it is absolutely FREE.
A right click on the archive file reveals 7-Zip functions.
7-Zip is a free and open source file archiver designed originally for Windows. It operates primarily with the .7z archive format, as well as being able to read and write to several other archive formats. One thing I like with 7-Zip is its ability to set passwords for archived files in .7z format.
You can download 7-Zip from their site or thru SourceForge.net.
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