This information applies to both the Evaluation and Full versions on ZipScan. Some features have been disabled in the evaluation version of the program. You are not permitted to distribute copies of the full version of ZipScan or to distribute your registration code. The complete licence agreement can be found by clicking the appropriate button in the About Box.

Introduction

ZipScan is a program that performs a fast file search which includes looking inside archive files, such as Zip files. This is useful if you have lots of documents archived in Zip files and need to be able to search for specific documents. It is also useful when looking for a particular DLL from a set of CAB installation files, and for Java programmmers who need to search through their JAR archives. I wrote this utility because programs such as WinZip do not have a search facility.

Who needs this program?

You do if:

• You have files stored in Zip or RAR files
• You have lost a valuable file - it's on your drive somewhere but you just can't find it
• Your Windows installation is broken and you need to find the right file from the Windows installation files
• You are a Java programmer and want to search your JAR files for particular classes
• You have a collection of device drivers and need to find the right version

New features in v1.5

• Searches self-extracting RAR files
• Search the version resources in executables, DLLs etc.
• Search a single archive file
• Search all local hard-drives in one operation
• Pause and resume searches
• Property pages for files
• Improved user interface - multiple search patterns can be specified on one line
• Specify directory or archive file to search by specifying it on the command line or dragging it to the window
• Stores a list of previous search patterns, so searches can be repeated easily
• Choose the location of the log file
• Files shown with the system icon
• Allows a recursive search of nested archives to a depth of 10 archives
• Program released both as a self-installing program and a zip file

Installation

If you have downloaded the self-extracting executable version of the program, simply run the setup program and it will install itself on your computer.
If you have received the zipped release of the program, simply extract all the files from the zip to the same directory. (For this you will need a zip program such as WinZip or ZipCentral) Then, just run the program (ZipScan.exe).

Instructions

The phrase "archive files" refers to Zip, CAB, RAR and JAR format files that have been searched by the program.

The program is quite easy to use:

1. Enter the directory from which to start the search, or the name of a single archive file you wish to search.
2. Specify whether you want to search directories, Zip files, CAB files, JAR files, RAR files or any combination of these.
3. Specify one or more search patterns. You can specify more than one pattern by separating them with a semicolon. These patterns use the standard wildcard characters (* and ?) to search for matching filenames. For example, "*.txt" would find all files that end in .txt and "*" would find every file in the chosen locations. In addition, by selecting the "Extra wildcard characters" from the appropriate selection box, you can employ two additional wildcard characters, $ and #. $ will match any letter character and # will match any single digit. If normal matching is selected, these symbols act as normal characters and must match a $ or # in the filename. There are more examples of possible search strings below.
4. If you wish, you can limit the search to find files of a certain size by checking the appropriate checkbox and filling in the details
5. Also, you can choose to search within files for a text string. Check the appropriate checkbox and enter the string to be found
6. You can also choose to search the version resources of files.
7. Click 'Run' to carry out the search. You will see the results window that will show the files as they are found. You can stop the search before it has finished by hitting 'Abort', or pause it by hitting 'Pause'.
8. When the search has finished, all the files found will be shown on screen with the name of the directory or archive file in which they exist and other information on them. The list can be sorted by clicking the column headings. You can also save the list to a text file for future reference.
9. From this screen, you can open, view and extract the files that have been found. Right click on the files to see the options. Opening a self-extracting Zip file will run the self-extract program, not open the file in WinZip.

Example 1:

If you want to find all the files with extensions .c and .h, enter the search pattern

Example 2:

To find all files beginning with the letter M, enter one search string:

Example 3:

To find all files whose names contain at least one numeral, select "Extra Wildcard Characters" in the selection box and enter the search string:

Example 4:

To find all files with four-character names followed by the extension .txt, enter the search string:

Example 5:

If you want to find a DLL called MyDll.dll which you believe is stored in a CAB file somewhere on your c drive, set the start directory as c:\ and check the CAB checkbox. Ensure that the 'Recursively search directories' box is checked. Enter the search string:

If you wish to find version 1.5.1 of this DLL, you can limit your search by selecting the 'Version Resource' search, choosing 'File Version' and entering the text

Example 6:

• A search pattern of "*" or "*.txt" would find all four of these files
• A search pattern of "tr?ck.txt" would find the first three files.
• With the extra wildcards enabled, a search pattern of "tr$ck.txt" would find the first two files (As $ will match any single letter)
• With the extra wildcards enabled, a search pattern of "tr#ck.txt" would find only the file tr7ck.txt (As # will only match any single digit)

Example 7:

Note that text searching is only available in the full version of the program.

Suppose you wished to find all the files on your D drive with the extensions .htm or .html that contained the text "BLINK"

• Enter the start directory as "d:\"
• Check the box to recursively search sub-directories
• In 'What to search' select Directories
• Set the search pattern to *.htm ; *.html"
• Enable the text search facility and enter "BLINK" as the text to find

If you drag a single directory or archive file to the dialog, the 'Where to Search' options will be automatically set to search that directory or archive. You can also specify this initial location on the program's command line.

When you perform a text search within archives, if a password-protected archive is found, you will be prompted for the password. You can choose to ignore password protected archives from the options screen.

When looking into nested archive files, ZipScan looks to a depth of ten archives.

By default, a log file, ZSLog.txt is created in the same directory as the program exeutable. You can choose a different location from the options screen. Each time ZipScan is run, this file is wiped to stop it growing too large.

All JAR files contain a hidden file called manifest.mf. When searching a Java archive, ZipScan ignores this file and will never show it in the results list.

There are two completely different types of JAR files. ZipScan only recognises those intended as Java archives. It will report errors if it encounters the other sort.

CAB files may store their filenames as Unicode characters (UTF encoding). Currently, ZipScan will report an error with such files (though I've never actually come across one). Also, Microsoft appears to have changed the format of CAB files and have not published the format. ZipScan cannot currently search these new format files.

When searching self-extracting Zip files, ZipScan examines every .EXE file to see whether it contains a self-extracting Zip or RAR archive. If no archive is found in a .EXE, the file is ignored. The program is not guaranteed to work with all self-extracting Zip or RAR files as there is not a standard.

If you check the box to ignore hidden files, the search:

• Won't show a file that lives in a directory if that file has the Hidden flag set
• Won't search an archive if the archive file has the Hidden flag set

• Won't search a directory (except the start directory) if that directory has the Hidden flag set

If you choose to ignore password-protected files, this option will only apply when performing a text or version search. Archive files that are password-protected will not be searched so the search can proceed without the user having to enter passwords for the archived files.

If you choose the grep-style filename matching, the pattern is compared to filenames using these rules:

• * matches any number of characters
• ? matches any single character
• [SET] matches any single character in the given set
  [!SET] or [^SET] matches any single character not in the given set A SET is a list of characters or ranges of characters. A backslash is used to escape a character with a special meaning, such as a hyphen.

Note that the text-searching option does not use wildcards, so if for example you use a * in this option, that will only match a * in the contents of the file.

ZipScan cannot be used on spanned disk sets (Where a Zip file is spread across several floppy disks).

When saving the results to a text file, they are saved in the order in which they are currently displayed in the window. So, if for example you want to save the files in order of size, click the Size column header before saving. If you do not want certain files to appear in the saved list, they can first be removed from the list by selecting them in the results window, right clicking them and selecting 'Remove from List'

Archived files that are password-protected are indicated by a 'P' in the Password column of the results list. These files require a password to be entered before they can be opened.

When files are opened from archive files, they are first extracted to your temporary folder. When the results window is closed, ZipScan tries to delete these files. However, if they are still open in some other program, the file deletion may fail and the files will stay there.

If there are errors during the search, such as invalid Zip files, this will be reported on the results dialog. Click the 'View Log' button to see where errors occurred.

When opening files from the results window, a file can only be opened if there is an application associated with it with the action name "open". If the action is called, for example, "Open with msdev" then the file cannot be opened.

There are shortcut keys for the results window: Space opens a file, Ctrl-X extracts an archived file; Ctrl-A opens the archive containing a file; Ctrl-R removes the currently selected file from the list; Ctrl-V views the file in Notepad; Ctrl-P opens a file's property pages.

E-mail me if you have any enquiries regarding the program. If you wish, I will add you to the mailing list to be kept informed of any new versions of the software. If you like this program, then please include a link to it on your website, recommend it to your friends and/or submit it to shareware archives.

If you find a bug in this software, please report it to me. Please include in your report the following information (where relevant):

• The version of ZipScan you are using
• The operating system (Windows 95/98/NT/2000/ME)
• How the error was caused and whether it can be repeated
• What sort of search you were doing (e.g. searching lots of directories or searching a single directory with lots of zip files etc)
• The error log file which by default is called ZSLog.txt and generated in the same directory as ZipScan.exe
• Your registration code (if the bug is in the full version of the program)

All of the recent enhancements of the program have been made in response to requests from users. The moral of this is that if you want any improvements in the program you should let me know. Possible ideas for new features are:

• Listing other file attributes in the results window
• Ability to search other archive formats
• More complex searching based on date etc. as in Windows file search

In addition, there are certain known issues with the program:

• Error reporting when extracting from archive files is unhelpful
• When a large number (e.g. 5000+) files have been found, closing the results window can take a long time. This only seems to occur with Windows 98
• Actions involving nested archives are sometimes prone to failure
• Extracting multiple files from nested archives is rather slow
• Text searches are implemented in an inefficient way, so may be slow

You can purchase a licence to use the full version of this program from the website.

Purchase of a licence entitles the owner to updates to the latest version of the program. Details of how to obtain new versions will be found on the website when they are released.

http://www.zipscan.co.uk/

This document and the ZipScan program are (C)opyright 1999, 2000, 2001 Adrian Bhagat. ZipScan is Shareware. You may use the Evaluation version of the program only while deciding whether or not to purchase the full version. To use the program permanently, you must purchase a licence for the full version. The full version of the Zipscan program is provided only to those who have purchased a licence and its distribution is strictly prohibited. ZipScan is supplied without warranty. Its suitability for any purpose is not guaranteed or implied. I accept no liability for any loss caused by use of the program.

WinZip is a trademark of Nico Mak Computing Inc. You can download a demo at www.winzip.com. If you are using WinZip, please make sure you have registered your copy.

CAB file extraction is implemented using the Cabinet Software Development Kit from Microsoft.

RAR file extraction is implemented using the library provided free by Eugene Roshal. Copyright (c) 1993-99 Eugene Roshal