WinRAR is an advanced data compression utility that supports a wide array of format including RAR, ZIP, CAB, ARJ, LZH, ACE, TAR, GZip, UUE, ISO, BZIP2, Z and 7-Zip. It enables you to create, organize and manage archives in a comfortable and quick manner.
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The complex compression algorithm it uses creates small archives, saving disk space and enabling faster file sharing. Audio and graphics files benefit from a special archiving algorithm, one that doesn’t make a compromise on quality. It includes Windows Explorer shortcuts for easy access and supports drag and drop as well.
WinRAR also provides possibilities to split archives into several volumes; this way, a large archive is divided into other smaller ones, which makes the perfect way to share huge files.
In case you wish to secure your files, you can always protect your data with a password, while the ‘Repair’ function comes in handy whenever you try to fix a broken archive.
Besides the fact that it does a great job when it comes to compressing files, WinRAR also integrates dedicated features that allow you to manipulate archives with a single click. You can backup the files you’re about to compress, you can test the archived files and you can even perform virus scans before decompressing, without putting the data stored on your computer at risk.
During our tests, the compression and decompression process worked amazingly fast, and that should happen in your case too, at least if your computer is able to handle the task. The only problems you could experience are strictly related to hardware resources, as working with 3 or 4 archives at the same time could be a bit overwhelming for slower computers.
All in all, WinRAR remains the industry-standard in the compression category. It allows you to handle the most popular compression formats using a single interface and at very high speeds provided by the complex engine hidden under the hood.
1. Information about the critical vulnerability in WinRAR self-extracting archives published in news in September and October 2015 is incorrect. Unfortunately mass media failed to recognize that what was described as WinRAR vulnerability is Windows OLE vulnerability patched in November 2014:
https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/security/ms14-064.aspx
Even if unpatched, this Windows OLE vulnerability does not introduce new risk factors for WinRAR SFX archives.
Please read http://rarlab.com/vuln_sfx_html2.htm for more details.
No patches for WinRAR are needed.
2. Added extraction of multipart ZIP archives created by 7-Zip.
Such archives have .zip.001, .zip.002, … file extensions.
You need to open .zip.001 file in WinRAR shell to browse
or unpack such archive. All parts must be stored in the same folder
before starting extraction.
3. Added extraction of files split to multiple parts with .001,
.002, …, extensions. You can open .001 file as a usual archive
and then unpack its contents. WinRAR will combine all parts
and save them to extracted file. All parts must be stored
in the same folder before starting extraction.
“001” item is included to “Associate WinRAR with” list
in “Settings/Integration” dialog.
4. WinRAR file list allows to use mouse Back and Forward buttons
or Alt+Left and Alt+Right keyboard shortcuts to navigate
in recently visited folders.
5. Folder wildcards are allowed in RAR command line in file names to
archive. For example:
rar a backup c:\backup\2015*\*
will archive all ‘2015*’ folders in c:\backup. Use -r switch to search
for ‘2015*’ also in c:\backup subfolders.
6. “Extract” button in SFX archive is changed to “Pause” when extraction
is started, so it is possible to pause SFX extraction and resume it
later.
7. “Skip encrypted” option in “Find files” dialog to silently skip
encrypted archives while performing search command.
8. Archive test command works for tar.gz, tar.bz2 and tar.xz archives.
Since TAR format does not provide file data checksums, WinRAR checks
only validity of GZIP, BZIP2 or XZ container.
9. Adding a new string to WinRAR diagnostic messages window could be
slow and affect the operation performance in case of thousands
of errors. Now it works fast regardless of errors number.
10. New ‘R’ object for -sc switch defines encoding of console
RAR messages sent to redirected files and pipes. For example:
rar lb -scur data > list.txt
will produce Unicode list.txt with archived file names.
11. Sleep time parameter in -ri[:<sleep_time>] switch is
adjusted to lower its impact to RAR performance and especially
to recovery record related operations. Higher sleep time values
are needed to reduce the system load to same level as
in previous versions.
12. Console RAR “l” and “v” commands display file time in YYYY-MM-DD
format.
13. When extracting RAR and ZIP archives created in Unix, WinRAR maps
decomposed Unicode characters to precomposed. Such conversion
is required for some Unix and OS X archives to correctly unpack
non-English archived names in Windows. It works for Windows versions
starting from Windows Vista.
14. Modification time is set for all folders created when unpacking
.7z archives. Previous versions set it only for non-empty folders.
15. WinRAR prevents a computer to go to sleep by inactivity timeout
until current operation, such as archiving, extraction or another
archive processing, is done.
16. Total progress bar is displayed when extracting .arj, .lzh and .cab
archives (except multivolume archives).
17. Progress bar is displayed when deleting files after archiving
and when clearing “Archive” attribute of archived files.
18. “Test” command also verifies contents of NTFS alternate data streams
in RAR 3.x – 5.x archives. Previously their contents was checked
only during extraction command.
19. SFX module sets sfxstime environment variable, which contains
the module start time in “YYYY-MM-DD-HH-MM-SS-ms” format.
You can specify it in Path command if you need to generate a time
based unique installation path, such as “Path=myapp-%sfxstime%”.
20. Bugs fixed:
a) console RAR crashed instead of displaying an overwrite prompt
when attempting to add files to already existing volumes;
b) console RAR “lt” command did not display seconds in file timestamp;
c) WinRAR failed to decompress .xxe files if they did not include
“section N of xxencode” string in the body;
d) WinRAR could not restore contents of NTFS alternate data stream
saved with -os switch if it was split between different volumes.
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