hey thanks for tips, but i'm pretty new to this and don't know what WinRAR or WinZip are or how to use them. i've been getting by ok so far just by luck i think. everything i've been interested in so far has opened up right away but there are a lot of things i've found on this forum that i'd love to try my hand at but just can get to open.
WinRAR and WinZIP are both programs designed to open "compressed" archives of files. Virtually every computer with windows on it has WinZIP. If you download a .zip file, simply right-click on it, select "OPEN WITH", then choose "Compressed(zipped) folders. That will in turn create a folder with all of the contained files. WinRAR works the same way, you just have to download that program. It's easily locatable through just about any search engine. I hope this helps.