Frequently Asked Questions

This page gives you a brief summary of common questions that already have been send to our support staff along with the answers that usually provide a solution for these problems. If you encounter difficulties when using one of our products, chances are good that you can fix the problem by consulting this page.

However, if your problem is not listed here, feel free to contact tech support directly.

WinAce

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How do I create an archive with WinAce?
 
How do I create a multivolume archive with WinAce?
 
How do I extract an archive with WinAce?
 
How do I extract a multivolume archive with WinAce?
 
I have lost the password to an encrypted archive. What can I do?
 
When I run WinAce, all messages and dialogs are in German. How do I switch to other languages?
How do I remove WinAce from the contect menu ("right mouse-button" menu)?
 
How do I reset the file associations for my archives?
 
I keep getting CRC errors when trying to extract a file. What can I do?
 

Sorry, no frequently asked questions available

There are several ways to create an archive with WinAce. Within WinAce, simply select the files and directories you would like to compress and click on the "Create" button in the icon bar. You will be presented with a dialog that allows to change the archive type, the filename of the archive (the default file name is the name of the parent directory + the corresponding archive extension). The archive type can be altered by either entering the file extension manually or by using the drop down list at the bottom of the screen.

Another way to create an archive is to use the shell extension menu, also known as the "right-mousebutton-menu". By selecting files with the Windows Explorer (or any other tool that supports the shell extension) and clicking the right mousebutton, you will be given two options: "Add to <name.ext>" and "Add to...".
"Add to <name.ext>" will automatically start compressing the selected files with the default options you have set in WinAce. "Add to..." on the other hand will allow you to adjust the compression options before the files are archived. (Using this feature requires the shell extension be enabled in the WinAce settings)

If you want to split your archives in two or more smaller volumes, e.g. for distributing your data on floppy disk or other media, simply go to the "Options" tab of the "Add files/Create archive" box. In the upper right corner is the section for determining the size of the volumes you would like to create. When selecting "None" (default setting), no additional volumes will be created - all data will be stored in a single archive. By selecting one of the pre-defined settings for common disk sizes from the drop-down list, the size of each volume is set. The final number of volumes created will depend on the total size of the data you want to compress and the level of compression that can be achieved. By selecting "Autodetect", each volume will be as large as the target media allows.

Within WinAce, just put your cursor on the archive you would like to uncompress and click on the "Extract" button in the icon bar. You will be prompted for a directory where the files from the archive should be extracted to. If you want to extract just some files from the archive instead of the whole archive, you can open the archive by double-clicking on it. Once in the archive, select the files you would like to uncompress and press the "Extract" button.

As with creating an archive, you can also use the shell extension for quick access to WinAce's features.

In order to extract a multi volume archive, just put the selection cursor on the first file of the volume set (.ace, .rar) and press the "Extract" button. All consecutive volumes will be extracted automatically if they are placed in the same directory as the first volume. If the consecutive volumes are stored in another directory or on another drive/media, you will be prompted to enter the path to the next volume.

Sorry, but there is nothing we can do about that. The encryption used in Ace/WinAce is pretty tight - it is basically a 160bit Blowfish encryption, which is almost as powerful as 168bit Tripel-DES encryption, which, as far as we know, has not been hacked yet.

The only way to hack into a file that has been password protected with WinAce is to use "brute force", which generally means to try to enter all possible passwords or combinations of numbers and characters. However, even with a fast computer, this may take months or even years, depending on the length of the password.

There is one thing you might want to try though:
The password encryption is case sensitive. Maybe you accidentally had caps lock turned on when you previously entered the password.

Just hit Alt-F9 and select "english" (or another available language option) from the dialog element in the bottom right corner - right where it says "Programmsprache".

Another way to re-select the language setting is to launch the program with the additional parameter PL e.g.

c:\winace\winace.exe pl

In order to remove the file associations and the shell extension, open the WinAce options (Alt-F9) and select the "Archives" tab. You can reset the file associations by changing the settings for each archive extension.

If you want to remove the WinAce shell-extension, uncheck the box "Activate WinAce Shell Extension" at the bottom of the dialog.

There are several reasons why WinAce could report a CRC (checksum) error. Generally this means that the file could not be extracted correctly because the data within the archive has been corrupted. This can happen during the transfer over the internet if the connection is unstable or more downloads are performed at once.

You can always try to repair the archive (Ctrl-P), but if this fails, we recommend to download the file again.

Another common reason for a reported CRC error is a full target drive. Please make sure that there is enough free disk space on the drive you want to extract your files to.