.WMZ File Extension
Windows Media Player Skin Package
| Developer | Microsoft |
| Popularity |
3.6 | 64 Votes |
What is a WMZ file?
A WMZ file is a pre-installed or custom skin that changes the appearance of the Windows Media Player interface, often to match a certain theme. It contains a combination of graphics and JScript code that defines the look and behavior of each skin element. WMZ files are compressed using ZIP compression.
How to open a WMZ file
Assuming you have Windows Media Player installed on your PC, you can double-click any WMZ file to apply it as a Windows Media Player skin.
After you apply a skin, it becomes available within Windows Media Player's Skin Chooser. You can access the Skin Chooser by selecting View → Skin chooser from the Windows Media Player menu bar.
Programs that open or reference WMZ files
Compressed Windows Metafile
| Developer | Microsoft |
| Popularity |
3.1 | 17 Votes |
More Information
WMF (Windows Metafile) is a mostly-obsolete image format that Microsoft released in the late 1980s. It was commonly used in Windows applications, such as Microsoft Word, Publisher, and PowerPoint, but was replaced by the .EMF (Enhanced Windows Metafile) format in 1992.
To make sharing WMF images easier, some programs compressed the images using Gzip compression, transforming them into WMZ files. As the WMF format declined in use and popularity, so did the WMZ format.
How to open a WMZ file
You can decompress a WMZ file into a WMF file using any decompression utility that supports Gzip (.GZ) compression, such as Corel WinZip (Windows, Mac), 7-Zip (Windows), Apple Archive Utility (Mac), or PeaZip (Windows, Linux). You may first have to change the file's extension to .gz.
After decompressing your WMZ file, you can open the resulting WMF file in any Microsoft Office application (Windows, Mac), Adobe Illustrator (Windows, Mac), or Inkscape (multiplatform).
How to convert a WMZ file
After decompressing your WMZ file into a WMF file using a Gzip decompression utility, you can convert the resulting WMF file to other image formats. For more information on converting WMF files, refer to the How to Convert section in our .WMF entry.