You can quickly access many of PowerArchiver's features through the program's integration with Windows 95/98/NT/2000/XP/2003/Vista/Windows 7/Windows 8 (including 64bit versions). Using PowerArchiver through Windows Explorer is the fastest way to both create and extract archives.
IMPORTANT: PowerArchiver only enables a few explorer shell extensions by default, so please go to “Options> Configuration> Shell Extensions” to fine tune your preferences.
To extract all the files in a ZIP archive without leaving Windows Explorer, right click on the compressed file, then choose “Extract To…”, “Extract To C:\…”, or “Extract Here” from the context (right click) menu. If you select “Extract To”, you will be prompted to select a specific folder in which to extract the files.
Another way to extract files from an archive is to use the right mouse button to drag and drop an archive from an Explorer window to any folder icon, then choose “Extract To” from the context menu. To do this, be sure to use the right mouse button while dragging.
To add files to a ZIP archive using leaving Windows Explorer, just select one or more files/folders in Explorer, right click on one of these highlighted files/folders and choose “Compress to…” or “Compress to ZIP”. Another way to add files to an existing archive is to drag any file onto the icon of that archive.
You can do almost every PowerArchiver action from Explorer Shell Extensions, including: compress, extract (multiple archives), split zip archives (span), convert archives, test archives, e-mail, FTP, encrypt and decrypt files (.pae). Some of these options are disabled by default so novice users would not be confused by the many options. You can go to “Options> Configuration> Shell Extensions” to change your shell extension preferences. We highly recommend adjusting these options.
To extract an archive, right click on it and drag it to any folder in Explorer window. When you release the right click button, you will get extraction options for that archive.
Right click anywhere on the directory or Desktop and from the “New…” menu, choose “PowerArchiver ZIP File”.
If you select “Include PowerArchiver in the Start menu” in PowerArchiver's “Options” menu, you can run PowerArchiver by clicking the icon in the Start menu. You can also access recently opened archives via the “Documents” entry in the Start menu.