I have talked about WinZip and Zip in the past, in particular their odd relationship with Unicode, in blogs like:

Now if you spend some time in the comments in that Zipping up Unicode file names blog, several people talked about how the ZIP formt itself has extensions to handle Unicode. Of course without implementers that is quite the theoretical point. If you know what I mean.

But do you know what?

Well, the gloves are off now, baby!

In my INBOX yesterday, from the folks over at WinZip:

We are pleased to inform you that we have just released WinZip 11.2, the second update to our most recent major release, WinZip 11.

WinZip 11.2 takes WinZip and the Zip compression standard to a wider global audience by integrating the Zip format’s newly-added Unicode support, allowing accurate rendering of international characters in file names when using the same Zip file on computers with different code pages. WinZip 11.2 changes include:

  • Unicode support to ensure proper display of international characters for file names in a Zip file
  • Integrated support for LHA (.LHA and .LZH support)
  • Removal of support for DOS-based, third-party programs such as ARJ and ARC
  • Minor bug fixes and enhancements

If you need assistance with the operation of the software, or have questions or comments about WinZip products, please contact us.

Your use of WinZip is governed by the terms of the WinZip License.

Thank you,
WinZip Computing

This is completely and entirely awesome.

Folks over in Windows now have a job to do for next version -- and I have some email to send tomorrow.... :-)

I also have to talk to the site license folks, too. More mail. But a good kind....

WinZip, you rock!

 

This post brought to you by Ž (U+017d, a.k.a. LATIN CAPITAL LETTER Z WITH CARON)
(An entirely zippable character in the new version of WinZip!)