An ARH file does not have one fixed meaning, 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.
Should you have virtually any queries with regards to wherever in addition to the way to use ARH file software, you can e-mail us at the site. To identify the ARH type accurately, the fastest trial is opening it with 7-Zip or WinRAR, because some ARH files are essentially archives; if the tool opens it and displays internal folders or files, you can extract them and inspect elements like images, configs, or database items—usually signaling a packaged Siemens/ProTool-style project—while a failure to open means the file might still be valid but proprietary, requiring ProTool or ArheoStratigraf, and you can also try copying and renaming the file to `.zip` or `.rar` in case it’s a simple archive under another name, with the real “correct” method depending on your needs: extraction works if you only want assets, but full project editing needs the original software.
Because many ARH files use archive-style packaging, they may be stored as compressed containers, so opening them with 7-Zip or WinRAR is a smart first step; if they open, you’ll see folders with configs, databases, images, or logs that quickly identify the source, and you can extract assets directly, but if they don’t, the ARH may just be a proprietary format, and copying and renaming the extension to `.zip` or `.rar` can reveal whether it’s a standard archive, making this test an easy way to classify the ARH and possibly recover data.
An ARH file doesn’t behave like a standardized file type 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.
In practice, “.ARH” only tells you the label, not the internals, because unrelated software may use the same extension for different purposes; automation-derived ARH files may be Siemens/ProTool HMI packages with screens, alarms, tags, and configs, while archaeology-derived ARH files may be ArheoStratigraf projects containing stratigraphy, context links, and diagram layouts, meaning files named similarly can differ completely, and proper identification depends on finding the source, checking adjacent files, and running neutral tests like 7-Zip to see if it opens as an archive or requires proprietary software.
You can usually tell what an ARH file represents by observing the *environment it lives in*—the folder structure, companion files, and domain—because the extension doesn’t dictate the format; ARH files appearing in automation engineering folders with Siemens, ProTool, WinCC, STEP7/S7, PLC, panels, tags, or alarms are commonly Siemens ProTool project packages, while ARH files inside archaeology folders marked trench, stratigraphy, matrix, layers, or excavation data typically correspond to ArheoStratigraf projects, and in ambiguous cases, a 7-Zip “Open archive” test reveals whether it’s a browsable container or a proprietary file requiring the original tool.