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getting started

drpetersonfernandes edited this page Sep 2, 2026 · 1 revision

title: Getting Started permalink: /getting-started nav_order: 3

Getting Started

A two-minute walkthrough of your first mount.

1. Mount an archive

Drag-and-drop (easiest): drag any supported archive file onto the executable in Explorer. The app starts, logs "Drag-and-drop mode: Detected archive file '…'" and mounts immediately.

From the app menu: start the app, use Mount (or Mount as Drive / Mount as Folder) and pick an archive file.

From the command line:

SimpleZipDrive.exe "C:\Games\MyGame.zip" M

2. Where it mounts

With no mount point specified, the app tries the drive letters M, N, O, P, Q in order and uses the first free one — the log shows:

Attempting to mount on 'M:'...
Successfully mounted on 'M:'.

If all five letters are taken, an error is logged and you can mount to a folder instead. A bare letter (M) is automatically expanded to M: (Dokan variant: M:\). See Mounting for the full rules.

3. Use the drive

Open This PC — the archive is now a removable-style drive named after the archive. Files open directly from the archive:

  • Small files are decompressed once into memory and shared by every reader.
  • Large files stream straight from the archive (stored ZIP entries) or through the disk cache.
  • Re-opening a file that is still in the memory cache is effectively instant.

Nothing is written to the archive or the drive — the volume is strictly read-only.

4. Unmount

Any of the following:

  • Press Unmount in the app window,
  • close the app window (it unmounts cleanly before exiting), or
  • eject the drive from Explorer's tray icon.

Unmounting deletes the session's temporary disk-cache files automatically.

5. Check the log pane

The window's log pane tells you exactly what happened at every step: archive type detection, entry counts, cache limits, mount attempts, and errors. Full detail is written to a session log file (see Logging) — if something does not work, that file is the first thing to look at.

Next steps

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