Music Bolt, being a music website, will feature a few different types files. Each of these ‘file types’ can be determined by the file’s icon, or it’s extension (ext, the letters after the period (.) in the file name). This post will discourse the various file types that will be seen on the blog.

.exe (Executable): These files are windows executables; they normally don’t need any type of extra program to open them. Simply open these file types regularly, and everything will be done for you. These files will rarely be on the site, unless I decide to put a good program up.
.zip (Zip Archive): These files are zipped archives. A zip file usually means that the file is compressed; it can be thought of as ’shrunken’, to reduce file size. Many files can be placed into a zip file, and these files are extracted onto a folder on your computer. Many operating systems (Windows, Mac) can now handle zip files automatically, but there are other archival programs such as WinRar that will handle .zip files as well as other archive file types. These files will be featured on the site frequently, so it is recommended that you download WinRar to be able to handle them.

.rar (WinRar Compressed Archive): This is another widely used archive file type. .rar files are WinRar Compressed Archives. These files can come in two forms: the first form, files with the .rar extension, operate similar to .zip files, except they must be opened with WinRar. The second form, files with the extension .r00-.r99, are known as split archives. This means that a regular archive is split into many different files, each file having an extension of .r00-.r99. Note that each of the split archives is needed to extract the file: if there are 20 split archives, and you’re missing .r17, you won’t be able to extract it. These files will also be featured on the site frequently, so it is recommended that you get WinRar.

.iso/.cue/.mds/etc (Image Files): These file types are image files, usually meaning they are the file equivalent of a CD or DVD. These files cannot be handled regularly; a special program is needed to mount these file types. Personally, I have always used Daemon Tools. Once these files are mounted, they will operate as if a real CD has been entered onto your computer. These files won’t be featured that often, occasionally with some programs, and rarely a music dvd.

These are the general types of files that will be used on the site. As more file types are discussed, I will list them here for future reference.