An ARH file can refer to unrelated file types, so determining its purpose requires examining where it came from; frequently it’s linked to Siemens ProTool in industrial automation, where it’s a compressed HMI project package used for backups or transfers—likely if seen alongside Siemens or PLC-related terms—whereas in archaeological work an ARH file may be an ArheoStratigraf project capturing stratigraphy data and Harris Matrix diagrams, often found in folders related to contexts, trenches, layers, or site documentation.

To determine what kind of ARH file you’re dealing with, the easiest direct check is opening it in 7-Zip or WinRAR, since certain ARH formats are archive containers; if it opens and reveals directories or internal files, you can extract and inspect items like project folders, config data, images, or database files—usually pointing toward a packaged project format such as Siemens/ProTool—whereas if 7-Zip reports an error, the ARH may still be intact but proprietary and meant for its original program, with an extra trick being to duplicate the file and rename it to `.zip` or `.rar` to see if it decompresses, and ultimately if your aim is just retrieving assets the extracted contents may suffice, but full viewing or editing requires the software that created it.

For more info in regards to ARH file compatibility stop by our web site. Because many ARH files function as bundled project containers, they’re sometimes stored as compressed containers similar to ZIP files, which is why trying 7-Zip or WinRAR is useful even before you know the source program; if 7-Zip opens it, you’ll usually see folders and files—configs, databases, images, logs—that reveal the file’s purpose and let you extract assets without the original software, while a failure to open simply suggests a proprietary format, and a good trick is renaming a copy to `.zip` or `.rar` to test whether it extracts, making this quick archive test an easy way to identify the ARH type and possibly recover what you need right away.

An ARH file isn’t a fixed-format document because many developers reuse ".ARH" for unrelated purposes, so the extension alone tells you little; instead, the source matters—industrial automation work (Siemens/HMI/PLC) points toward a packaged project, while archaeological stratigraphy work points toward an ArheoStratigraf file—and checking how it behaves in tools like 7-Zip helps determine whether it’s an archive or a proprietary project.

What this means day-to-day is that ".ARH" labels the file without standardizing it, so an ARH from automation circles might be a Siemens/ProTool package containing screens, tag sets, alarms, and configs, while an archaeology ARH might instead be an ArheoStratigraf project with stratigraphy and diagram structure, and even matching filenames can hide unrelated data, which is why checking its origin, nearby files, and behavior in 7-Zip is the safest method to determine if it’s an archive or a proprietary project needing the original software.

You can typically pinpoint the type of ARH file by examining the *surrounding clues*—folder names, companion files, and the workflow source—since the extension itself is not definitive; in automation contexts with Siemens, ProTool, WinCC, STEP7/S7, PLC, HMI, tags, or alarms present, the ARH is likely a Siemens ProTool project package, whereas in archaeology folders labeled trench, context, stratigraphy, matrix, layers, or site and bundled with excavation documents or images, it is probably ArheoStratigraf, and if uncertain, attempting to open it with 7-Zip will reveal whether it behaves like an archive or needs its original software.