Dear Quilter711,
You don't need the box to VIEW the files, but you need to box to take them from your computer and put them on your embroidery machine. You need to have a different software to unzip your files in order to view what you have. Also, if you have Vista or Windows 7, you have to make sure the PED basic box will be compatible with your embroidery machine. My original PED box will not work with my Vista.