Is the program really free?

One thing we can confirm is that the 7zip download we provide on our website really is free of charge. You’ll be able to install it using the download button on our website and when you do, you’ll be able to open up the tool with no restrictions. It isn’t one of those scams that make you pay once you’ve installed it, this has always will be free and will continue to be that way.

I’m trying to open up a ZIP archive but the tool says it is corrupt, why is that?

The majority of the time when this occurs it is due to the software that originally packaged the ZIP archive not doing it correctly, normally due to the headers being incorrect. The best way of solving this is by contacting the person who sent it to you so they can either try repackaging it, using a different format or contacting the manufacturer of the software they use to make sure this doesn’t happen again.

How can I set it to be my default compression utility when running on Vista or Windows 7?

In Windows XP you’ll have no problems doing this through the tool itself with no customisations being required. However, Windows Vista and 7 have tougher security measures put into place to stop hackers from taking advantage of your machine so to set it as your default tool you’ll need to make sure you’re running the program in administrator mode first. You can do this by right-clicking the 7zip icon and then pressing “Run as Administrator”. You may be asked to enter your password at this stage but when you have, you should be able to set the permissions as you want with no issues at all.

I’m not an expert when it comes to computers, is this utility for me?

People of all different ages, genders and countries install this tool onto their computers, you don’t need to have any knowledge at all to install this onto your computer and then use it. Every feature in it is well documented but we assume most people will just use it to extract archives when they’ve downloaded one or had one to sent to them, in which case simply double clicking on the archive is usually enough. This is something that anyone can do so don’t worry about struggling to use 7-Zip, we’ve never had a complaint about it being too complicated to use because it really is difficult to get wrong.

I have a question or problem that hasn’t been answered on your website, what can I do?

In this case, we recommend that you use the contact form we’ve put on our website which has been created to help you if you have any issues with it that we haven’t discussed as of yet. If it’s a big issue we’ll try and get it solved for you, but note that we can’t guarantee a reply to every single message due to the vast quantity that we receive on a regular basis. However, you have something important to say we will read it so go ahead and use the form if you want to do so.