dodgy cracks

[Dr Apocalypse]

How do you know the cracks don't work when you can't even open the archive?

You meant to say 'Archived files' didn't you? Check that you really do have an ACE/ZIP/RAR archive first, you can do this by changing the extension to ACE/ZIP/RAR and opening with the appropriate archiver, or load the file into a HEX editor and look at the first few bytes of the file, you should see some text like:

**ACE** for ACE files
PK for ZIP files
Rar! for RAR files

I've downloaded an ACE file before only to find out it was a RAR file renamed to ACE.

DrA.