The decompression phase often causes the most confusion for users trying to install software to their Palm devices. This is usually because decompression requires additional software and utilizes a variety of file types that are often unfamiliar. However, the process is not really that complicated once you have the right tools and understand what is happening.

Software files are compressed to reduce their size for easy transmission over the Internet. In many cases, if the files were not compressed, they would take hours to download, particularly for users with slow connections. Once they have been transfered, they can by decompressed by the user back to their full size and ready for use.

	Figure 5: File Manager (before decompression)

The first step in decompressing software is to make sure that you have a decompression utility. There are a number of alternative utility programs that will accomplish this purpose, but the one we recommend is WinZip. If you do not have a copy of this useful program, click here to download one (once the download is complete, you can install and start the program by double-clicking the icon in your file manager). If you already have a copy of WinZip (or the utility of your choice) you are ready to start the decompression process.

	Figure 6: WinZip Window

Using your file manager, you will be able to select the file that you wish to decompress. In this example, we have gone back into our Palm folder (Figure 5) where there is a file called 'games' (the file we downloaded from the Internet).

To decompress this file, simply double-click it. This should launch the decompression utility automatically. If you are using WinZip, you will see a window something like the one depicted in Figure 6. This window shows all of the files included in the compressed file along with certain statistics about those files (such as the file size and compression ratio).

In the toolbar you will see a button labeled 'Extract' (about half way across). To begin decompressing the files you will want to click this button (if you only want to decompress certain files you can select those first by clicking on them, but in most cases you will want to decompress all the files).

	Figure 7: Extract Window

Once you click the 'Extract' button, a window will pop-up that asks you where you want to save the decompressed files (Figure 7). You can choose any location on your computer, but again we recommend using a specific folder for all of your download files (here we are using a folder called 'Palm'). You can also create a new folder to contain only the files you are about to decompress. This will keep all of your new files separate from other files you have downloaded which will help keep things organized and easy to find. To create a new folder, simply click the 'New Folder' button in the lower left corner and type in the folder name.

If you are happy with the location specified in the 'Extract to:' box (in the upper-left corner of the Extract Window), click the button marked 'Extract'. Your downloaded file will now be decompressed and the resulting files stored in the folder you specified.

	Figure 8: File Manager

Looking in the file manager, it is possible to see if the decompression was successful (in our example you can see that there are a number of new files listed in the Palm directory (Figure 8). These are the files that were contained in the compressed file).

If the decompression was successful, you can decide whether you wish to keep the original compressed file or delete it. If disk space is not really an issue you may wish to keep the compressed file just in case something happens to one of the decompressed files and you need another copy. We generally keep the compressed files in one folder and all of the decompressed files in individual folders named after the main program we downloaded.

I am ready to install. Take me to Step 3.