The requirements for WinZip Command Line Support Add-on to run as registered

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Note: this information relates to WinZip 12.1 and later, along with the WinZip Command Line Support Add-on 3.0 and later.

Usually, when WinZip is installed, it writes a WinZip.addon file to a WinZip subfolder in the Windows CommonAppData folder. A typical path to this would be C:\ProgramData\WinZip in Windows 11, Windows 10, Windows 8, and Windows 7. When you register WinZip, the UZQF string value is updated in

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Nico Mak Computing\WinZip\WinIni

with a new value, and that value is also updated in the WinZip.addon file.

When another user runs WinZip, the same string will be updated in HKLM and will also be updated in

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Nico Mak Computing\WinZip\WinIni

When WinZip Command Line Support Add-On runs, it looks for the value in the WinZip.addon file. If a value is found, but it is incorrect (perhaps due to an upgrade situation) WinZip Command Line Support Add-On will not run as registered. If it cannot read the WinZip.addon file for some reason, it looks in HKCU, and it may look for the value in HKLM as the last resort. The value found must be a registered value, otherwise the add-on will run as the evaluation version.

If your WinZip Command Line Support Add-On users will be running the add-on without ever having opened WinZip, you may want to create a valid WinZip.addon file on a test computer. To do so:

  1. Install WinZip on the test machine
  2. Install the WinZip Command Line Support Add-on
  3. Register and open WinZip

After doing the above steps, you can copy the WinZip.addon file in C:\ProgramData\WinZip or copy the entire folder. The copied file or folder can then be copied to user computers after WinZip and the add-on have been installed there.

This should ensure that the add-on will always run as registered. 

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