WinZip Enterprise and Windows Information Protection (WIP)

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Windows 10 has introduced Windows Information Protection, formerly referred to as Enterprise Data Protection (EDP), to guard against accidental data leaks. This protection helps to control files that are shared within a network in an enterprise, differentiating between work files and personal files. We recommend that you review information from Microsoft to get a better understanding of WIP, what it does, and how you can set it up. You might start with Protect your enterprise data using Windows Information Protection (WIP) and possibly continue with the next steps offered on the page.

WinZip is a WIP-enlightened application starting with WinZip 21.0, when installed from the WinZip Enterprise package of files as part of a WinZip Enterprise license. It can be added to the Allowed Apps list by the administrators in a domain, and it will then behave according to the restrictions that are part of the WIP policy for the domain.

For this article, references to the differentiation of files will be mentioned as tags. That is a file might be tagged as work or a file might be tagged as personal.

Basic Operations & Concepts

Domains: Managed vs. Not Managed

Users may be able to see files in a folder and seem to have access to them but not be able to open them. This happens when files are managed by a different domain that has not given access to the user trying to open the files. This would be possible when various users having various permissions save files to a network folder that is common to people of more than one group. In this case, you end up with files that are managed by different domains in the same folder. WIP restricts users from opening these files if they have not been given permission for the domain the file is managed by.

Work vs. Personal files

Under WIP, files are separated into two groups; they are tagged either as work or as personal. Work files are associated with a domain that manages them. Work files can only reside on secure network resources. Personal files can reside on the same resources. User actions are restricted when dealing with files tagged as work, but there are no restrictions on personal files.

Opening Zip files

The following list presents examples you may encounter while in a WIP environment and opening a Zip file in WinZip:

Adding files to Zip files

The following list presents examples you may encounter while in a WIP environment when adding files to a Zip file:

  1. Open WinZip empty, then add files:

Adding files to an open, existing, personal Zip file:

Adding files to an open, existing, work Zip file:

Right-click a file and choose WinZipAdd to filename.zip:

Deleting files from a Zip file

Deleting a file from a Zip file does not change the WIP tag (work or personal).

Renaming a file in a Zip file

Renaming a file in a Zip file does not change the WIP tag (work or personal).

The Save As dialog

In WinZIp's Save As dialog, a drop down menu in front of File name is available. When configured to allow it, the user can use this menu to manually set whether the Zip file will be work or personal.

Drop down menu - work to personal

The following list presents examples you may encounter while in a WIP environment when using Save As if such changes are allowed:

Note: You cannot save a file managed by one domain in such a way as to have it be managed by another.

Using Drag and Drop

Using Copy and Paste

WinZip Backups (Job Files)

WinZip Backups are created with the Job Wizard and are also referred to as job files (.wjf).

Split Zip files, self-extractors, and UUE conversion

Clouds, Instant Messages, and Social Media

Other Details

General Rules

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