What you need to know
- Corel, the company behind WinZip, has released its classic, full Win32 app in the new Store for Windows 11.
- The app uses its own installer and bypasses the Microsoft Store for payments.
- Users can trial WinZip 25 Pro and then unlock with a purchased license code later.
- This is the first known app to leverage Microsoft's new Store policies for Windows 11.
Keeping to its promise, Microsoft is letting classic Windows 32 apps into the new Store for Windows 11 unencumbered by wrappers or installers. One of the first apps to take advantage of the new policy is a legendary app many of us have used before: WinZip.
The company notes the WinZip team "has worked closely with Microsoft" to bring the fully functional app to the Store.
While WinZip has similar apps already for Windows 10, those apps are "Store editions" that may limit functionality and design.
This new WinZip 25 Pro version downloads as a free app, but like classic trialware from the late 1990s, you can run it for a while before entering a license code to unlock the Pro version. And that's the difference: payments for the pro version go through WinZip themselves and not the Microsoft Store, one of the fundamental changes with Windows 11.
It is not just WinZip, however. CorelDRAW Graphics Suite is also coming to the new Store as a classic Win32 app. Look for that app later this year when Windows 11 goes live.
Move over limited UPW apps as Corel is bringing its classic and true version of WinZip to the new Microsoft Store for Windows 11. The app is full featured, offers a trial, and licensing goes through Corel direct. (Note: this link will only work on systems with the updated Microsoft Store and the Windows 11 preview installed; or just search for WinZip.)
