Windows does not recognize file type

[Ed-621]

I downloaded Gimp Help but it has a .tar file and windows will not
open. How do I change the file to something windows will open so I can
get the help files to open in Windows.

[Cline Frasier]

You need to download "gimp-help-2-2.4.0-eng-setup.exe" from the windows
download area. Look for instructions about where it goes. I don't  
remember those.
 
Ed wrote:
>
> I downloaded Gimp Help but it has a .tar file and windows will not
> open. How do I change the file to something windows will open so I can
> get the help files to open in Windows.
>
>  



[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

[Michael Rudas]

--- Ed (Horsefly) wrote:
   
> I downloaded Gimp Help but it has a .tar file
> and Windows will not open it.

The utility "7-Zip" handles TAR files and a LOT more (including a bare-bones-but-useful file manager) -- one of the reasons it's the very first thing I install on EVERY Windows-based PC that I touch.

After installation, go to the Tools-->Options menu, check "Select All" then deselect .ISO -- click "OK" and you are good-to-go (it can look inside .iso files, a useful feature but you don't want it to be the default tool for them).

http://www.7-Zip.org

~~ ScienceMikey

[Brandy March]

thank you so much, i will load those programs right away.

 




----- Original Message ----
From: Michael Rudas <m_p_rudas@...>
To: gimpwin-users@...
Sent: Friday, September 5, 2008 7:05:14 PM
Subject: [gimpwin-users] Re: Windows does not recognize file type


--- Ed (Horsefly) wrote:

> I downloaded Gimp Help but it has a .tar file
> and Windows will not open it.

The utility "7-Zip" handles TAR files and a LOT more (including a bare-bones-but- useful file manager) -- one of the reasons it's the very first thing I install on EVERY Windows-based PC that I touch.

After installation, go to the Tools-->Options menu, check "Select All" then deselect .ISO -- click "OK" and you are good-to-go (it can look inside .iso files, a useful feature but you don't want it to be the default tool for them).

http://www.7- Zip.org

~~ ScienceMikey
   


     

[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

[Tor Lillqvist]

> The utility "7-Zip" handles TAR files

In this case unpacking the tar (or tar.bz2, actually, I think) file
will not help, though. What the tar file sontains is the *sources* of
the documentation, as a myriad of files in an XML format that is not
useful for end-users.

Sure, the text on the http://www.gimp.org/downloads/ page (from which
I guess the original poster found what he thought were "help files")
could be made even more explicit to avoid confusion...

--tml

[Michael Rudas]

I just realized that I left out some useful information in my earlier post on this subject, so this is a re-post with the missing information added at the end.  Sorry about that...

--- Ed (Horsefly) wrote:
   
> I downloaded Gimp Help but it has a .tar file
> and Windows will not open it.

The utility "7-Zip" handles TAR files and a LOT more (including a bare-bones-but-useful file manager) -- one of the reasons it's the very first thing I install on EVERY Windows-based PC that I touch.

After installation, go to the Tools-->Options menu, check "Select All" then deselect .ISO -- click "OK" and you are good-to-go (it can look inside .iso files, a useful feature but you don't want it to be the default tool for them).

<http://www.7-Zip.org>

Added:
the 7-Zip file manager bypasses Windows Explorer.  While this means that some functions provided by Explorer are not available, this CAN be useful; Explorer sometimes "lies" about the file system. 7-Zip's file-copy mode is sometimes faster than Windows' own, as well.  The function key [F9] toggles the single-pane / dual-pane file-view modes.  I usually use the dual-pane view.

~~ ScienceMikey

[Kent Paul Dolan]

To: gimpwin-users@...
From: Michael Rudas <m_p_rudas@...>
Date: Sun, 7 Sep 2008 20:29:27 -0700 (PDT)
Subject: [gimpwin-users] Re: Windows does not recognize file type



--- Ed (Horsefly) wrote:

>> I downloaded Gimp Help but it has a .tar file and
>> Windows will not open it.

Except for a few files which MS-Windows recognizes
as executables or dynamic link libraries, this is
conceptually the wrong viewpoint.

Windows doesn't really "open" files; the contents of
most file types are opaque to MS-Windows.

Instead, Windows keeps a table of matchups between
file extension tags and installed application
programs to handle those tagged file types.

When you tell Windows to "open" a file, what it does
instead is hand a link/handle for the file to the
application program matched to that file type, and
that application program, which does understand the
file's contents, "opens" the file.

So, if Ed had installed 7-Zip, and assigned the .tar
file tag to be opened by 7-Zip, then that's what
would happen when a *.tar file was "opened"; 7-Zip
would open it, not MS-Windows.

Similarly if Ed had installed the MS-Windows port of
the Unix tar program, and assigned it the .tar file
type to handle, opening a *.tar file would invoke
the tar program. Arguably this is a better choice,
tar has a _lot_ of options. I doubt 7-Zip has
implemented them all.

ScienceMikey wrote:
> The utility "7-Zip" handles TAR files ...
> <http://www.7-Zip.org>

You apparently missed the larger issue that Ed
downloaded the wrong files, per tml. There is
an installer for the GIMP help files that will save
Ed all that effort, so Ed shouldn't have to be
messing with the tar files, which are both not the
documentation anyway, but the raw data from which
the documents are constructed, and also not files
intended for end user consumption.

xanthian.