WinRAR Changelog

What's new in WinRAR 7.01 Beta

Apr 25, 2024

Bugs fixed:
updating an encrypted file in a solid RAR archive produced a corrupt archive if updated file was the first in archive, no password was specified when starting updating and file name encryption in the updated archive wasn't enabled;
fixed a possible crash in Unix RAR and UnRAR when unpacking a corrupt RAR archive. We are thankful to Matteo Marini for reporting this bug;
switch -ep4 duplicated the specified path instead of excluding it when extracting.

New in WinRAR 7.00 (Feb 28, 2024)

Compression dictionary sizes larger than 1 GB are supported for RAR archive format. Depending on the amount of physically available memory, dictionary up to 64 GB can be selected.
Not power of 2 dictionary sizes can be specified for dictionaries exceeding 4 GB. So we are not limited to 4, 8, 16, 32, 64 series and can use values like 5 GB or 22 GB.
Archives with dictionaries exceeding 4 GB can be unpacked only by RAR 7.0 or newer.
Increasing the dictionary size can improve the compression ratio for large files with distant repeated blocks, like virtual machine disk images. It also can be efficient for sets of large similar files in a solid archive, such as a collection of software ISO images differing by version or localization.
By default RAR refuses to unpack archives with dictionary exceeding 4 GB. It is done to prevent the unexpected excessive memory allocation.
Use -md or -mdx to allow unpacking dictionaries up to and including the specified size. Unlike -md, -mdx is applied to extraction only and can be added to RAR environment variable, not affecting archiving commands.
Alternate search algorithm, optimized to locate longer and more distant repeated data blocks, can be used when creating RAR archives. It helps to improve the compression ratio and sometimes speed for redundant data like big text files.
It increases memory usage and might reduce the compression speed for some types of data. It can be turned on or off with with -mcl[+|-] switch. If -mcl is not present, RAR applies the long range search depending on the compression method, dictionary size and other parameters.
This algorithm is required for dictionaries exceeding 4 GB and turning it off is ignored for such dictionaries.
Much slower and more exhaustive repeated data search and compression algorithm can be enabled with -mcx switch. It might provide the additional compression gain for some types of redundant data, but at much lower compression speed.
Long range search is needed to implement this mode efficiently, so the exhaustive search option activates it automatically.
Both long range and exhaustive search option do not affect the compatibility of created archives. So if dictionary size is in 128 KB - 4 GB range, archives created with these search options can be unpacked by all RAR versions beginning from 5.0.
Maximum path length limit is increased from 2047 to 65535 characters.
Creating archives in RAR 4.x format isn't supported anymore. Options and switches specific for this format are removed. It doesn't affect RAR 4.x archives decompression, which is included into RAR.
Switch -ol- prohibits archiving and extracting symbolic links.
Switches -sl[u] and -sm[u] recognize [k|K|m|M|g|G|t|T] size units for kilobytes, thousands of bytes, megabytes, millions of bytes, gigabytes, billions of bytes, terabytes, trillions of bytes. If unit character is 'b', 'B' or not present, bytes are assumed.
Previously these switches accepted bytes only.
Switch -v[unit] recognizes 't' and 'T' as terabytes and trillions of bytes for volume size units.
Proper progress is displayed when compressing symbolic link targets.

New in WinRAR 7.00 Beta 4 (Jan 25, 2024)

New in WinRAR 7.00 Beta 3 (Dec 13, 2023)

New in WinRAR 7.00 Beta 2 (Nov 26, 2023)

New in WinRAR 7.00 Beta 1 (Oct 23, 2023)

Compression dictionary sizes larger than 1 GB are supported for RAR archive format. Depending on the amount of physically available memory, dictionary up to 64 GB can be selected.
Not power of 2 dictionary sizes can be specified for dictionaries exceeding 4 GB. So we are not limited to 4, 8, 16, 32, 64 series and can use values like 5 GB or 22 GB.
Archives with dictionaries exceeding 4 GB can be unpacked only by RAR 7.0 or newer.
Increasing the dictionary size can improve the compression ratio for large files with distant repeated blocks, like virtual machine disk images. It also can be efficient for sets of large similar files in a solid archive, such as a collection of software ISO images differing by version or localization.
By default RAR refuses to unpack archives with dictionary exceeding 4 GB. It is done to prevent the unexpected excessive memory allocation.
Use -md or -mdx to allow unpacking dictionaries up to and including the specified size. Unlike -md, -mdx is applied to extraction only and can be added to RAR environment variable, not affecting archiving commands.
Alternate search algorithm, optimized to locate longer and more distant repeated data blocks, can be used when creating RAR archives. It helps to improve the compression ratio and sometimes speed for redundant data like big text files.
It increases memory usage and might reduce the compression speed for some types of data. It can be turned on or off with with -mcl[+|-] switch. If -mcl is not present, RAR applies the long range search depending on the compression method, dictionary size and other parameters.
This algorithm is required for dictionaries exceeding 4 GB and turning it off is ignored for such dictionaries.
Much slower and more exhaustive repeated data search and compression algorithm can be enabled with -mcx switch. It might provide the additional compression gain for some types of redundant data, but at much lower compression speed.
Long range search is needed to implement this mode efficiently, so the exhaustive search option activates it automatically.
Both long range and exhaustive search option do not affect the compatibility of created archives. So if dictionary size is in 128 KB - 4 GB range, archives created with these search options can be unpacked by all RAR versions beginning from 5.0.
Maximum path length limit is increased from 2047 to 65535 characters.
Creating archives in RAR 4.x format isn't supported anymore. Options and switches specific for this format are removed. It doesn't affect RAR 4.x archives decompression, which is included into RAR.
Switch -ol- prohibits archiving and extracting symbolic links.
Switches -sl[u] and -sm[u] recognize [k|K|m|M|g|G|t|T] size units for kilobytes, thousands of bytes, megabytes, millions of bytes, gigabytes, billions of bytes, terabytes, trillions of bytes. If unit character is 'b', 'B' or not present, bytes are assumed.
Previously these switches accepted bytes only.
Switch -v[unit] recognizes 't' and 'T' as terabytes and trillions of bytes for volume size units.
Proper progress is displayed when compressing symbolic link targets.

New in WinRAR 6.24 (Oct 5, 2023)

New in WinRAR 6.24 Beta 1 (Sep 18, 2023)

New in WinRAR 6.23 (Aug 2, 2023)

New in WinRAR 6.23 Beta 1 (Jul 20, 2023)

New in WinRAR 6.22 (May 31, 2023)

New in WinRAR 6.22 Beta 1 (May 14, 2023)

New in WinRAR 6.21 (Feb 20, 2023)

New in WinRAR 6.21 Beta 1 (Jan 24, 2023)

New in WinRAR 6.20 (Jan 23, 2023)

Fixed the security vulnerability allowing to create unpacked files outside of destination directory and to copy files resided outside of destination directory into the destination directory.
We are thankful to Simon Scannell from Google for reporting it.
If extraction command involves only a part of files in RAR archive, the additional archive analysis is performed when starting extraction. It helps to properly unpack file references even if reference source is not selected. It works for most of RAR archives except for volumes on multiple removable media and archives containing a very large number of references.
Also in some cases such analysis may help to optimize the amount of processing data when extracting individual files from semi-solid archives created with -s and -se switches.
Switch -ams or just -am together with archive modification commands can be used to save the archive name and creation time.
These saved parameters are displayed in header of "l" and "v" commands output and can be restored with -amr switch combined with "ch" command, such as "rar ch -amr arc.rar". If -amr is specified, "ch" ignores other archive modification switches.
Restoring involves renaming an archive to original name and setting the saved time as the archive modification time.
Faster RAR5 compression of poorly compressible data on modern CPUs with 8 or more execution threads. This applies to all methods except "Fastest", which performance remains the same.
"Repair" command efficiency is improved for shuffled data blocks in recovery record protected RAR5 archives.
If file size has grown after archiving when creating non-solid RAR volumes, such file is stored without compression regardless of volume number, provided that file isn't split between volumes. Previously it worked only for files in the first volume.
When archiving from stdin with -si switch, RAR displays the current amount of read bytes as the progress indicator.
If wrong password is specified when adding files to encrypted solid RAR5 archive, a password will be requested again. Previous versions cancelled archiving in this case.

New in WinRAR 6.20 Beta 3 (Dec 15, 2022)

New in WinRAR 6.20 Beta 2 (Nov 14, 2022)

New in WinRAR 6.20 Beta 1 (Oct 26, 2022)

New in WinRAR 6.12 (Oct 26, 2022)

New in WinRAR 6.11 (Mar 4, 2022)

New in WinRAR 6.11 Beta 1 (Feb 22, 2022)

New in WinRAR 6.10 (Jan 25, 2022)

Switch -si can be used when extracting or testing to read archive data from stdin, such as: cat docs.rar | rar x -si -o+ -pmypwd dummy docs/
Even though the archive name is ignored with this switch, an arbitrary dummy archive name has to specified in the command line.
Operations requiring backward seeks are unavailable in this mode. It includes displaying archive comments, testing the recovery record, utilizing the quick open information, processing multivolume archives.
Prompts requiring user interaction are not allowed. Use -o[+|-|r], -p or -mes switches to suppress such prompts.
New -ep4 switch excludes the path prefix when archiving or extracting if this path is found in the beginning of archived name. Path is compared with names already prepared to store in archive, without drive letters and leading path separators. For example: rar a -ep4texts/books archive /texts/books/technical
removes "text/books" from archived names, so they start from 'technical'.
New -mes switch skips encrypted files when extracting or testing. It replaces former -p- switch.
New -op switch sets the destination directory for 'x' and 'e' extraction commands. Unlike command line parameter, this switch also accepts paths without trailing path separator character.
If 'p' command is used to print a file to stdout, informational messages are suppressed automatically to prevent them mixing with file data.
"Generate archive name by mask" option and switch -ag treat only first two 'M' characters after 'H' as minutes. Previously any amount of such characters was considered as minutes.
It makes possible to place the time field before the date, like -agHHMM-DDMMYY. Previous versions considered all 'M' in this string as minutes.
Maximum allowed size of RAR5 recovery record is increased to 1000% of protected data size. Maximum number of RAR5 recovery volumes can be 10 times larger than protected RAR volumes.
Previous WinRAR versions are not able to use the recovery record to repair broken archives if recovery record size exceeds 99%. Similarly, previous versions cannot use recovery volumes if their number is equal or larger than number of RAR volumes.
Warning is issued if entered password exceeds the allowed limit of 127 characters and is truncated. Previously such passwords had been truncated silently.
Command line -en switch is not supported anymore. It created RAR4 archives without the end of archive record.
End of archive record permits to gracefully skip external data like digital signatures.
Bugs fixed:
the total progress could be displayed incorrectly when using -oi, -f, -u switches or appropriate GUI options.

New in WinRAR 6.10 Beta 3 (Dec 10, 2021)

New in WinRAR 6.10 Beta 2 (Nov 17, 2021)

New in WinRAR 6.10 Beta 1 (Oct 8, 2021)

Switch -si can be used when extracting or testing to read archive data from stdin, such as: type docs.rar | rar x -si -o+ -pmypwd dummy docs/
Even though the archive name is ignored with this switch, an arbitrary dummy archive name has to specified in the command line.
Operations requiring backward seeks are unavailable in this mode. It includes displaying archive comments, testing the recovery record, utilizing the quick open information, processing multivolume archives.
Prompts requiring user interaction are not allowed. Use -o[+|-|r], -p or -mes switches to suppress such prompts.
New -ep4 switch excludes the path prefix when archiving or extracting if this path is found in the beginning of archived name. Path is compared with names already prepared to store in archive, without drive letters and leading path separators. For example: rar a -ep4texts/books archive /texts/books/technical
removes "text/books" from archived names, so they start from 'technical'.
New -mes switch skips encrypted files when extracting or testing.
New -op switch sets the destination directory for 'x' and 'e' extraction commands. Unlike command line parameter, this switch also accepts paths without trailing path separator character.
If 'p' command is used to print a file to stdout, informational messages are suppressed automatically to prevent them mixing with file data.
"Generate archive name by mask" option and switch -ag treat only first two 'M' characters after 'H' as minutes. Previously any amount of such characters was considered as minutes.
It makes possible to place the time field before the date, like -agHHMM-DDMMYY. Previous versions considered all 'M' in this string as minutes.
Maximum allowed size of RAR5 recovery record is increased to 1000% of protected data size. Maximum number of RAR5 recovery volumes can be 10 times larger than protected RAR volumes.
Previous WinRAR versions are not able to use the recovery record to repair broken archives if recovery record size exceeds 99%. Similarly, previous versions cannot use recovery volumes if their number is equal or larger than number of RAR volumes.
Warning is issued if entered password exceeds the allowed limit of 127 characters and is truncated. Previously such passwords had been truncated silently.
Command line -en switch is not supported anymore. It created RAR4 archives without the end of archive record.
End of archive record permits to gracefully skip external data like digital signatures.
Bugs fixed:
the total progress could be displayed incorrectly when using -oi, -f, -u switches or appropriate GUI options.

New in WinRAR 6.02 (Jun 14, 2021)

New in WinRAR 6.02 Beta 1 (May 17, 2021)

New in WinRAR 6.01 (Apr 12, 2021)

New in WinRAR 6.01 Beta 1 (Mar 5, 2021)

New in WinRAR 6.00 (Dec 7, 2020)

"Ignore" and "Ignore All" options are added to read error prompt. "Ignore" allows to continue processing with already read file part only and "Ignore All" does it for all future read errors.
For example, if you archive a file, which portion is locked by another process, and if "Ignore" is selected in read error prompt, only a part of file preceding the unreadable region will be saved into archive.
It can help to avoid interrupting lengthy archiving operations, though be aware that files archived with "Ignore" are incomplete.
If switch -y is specified, "Ignore" is applied to all files by default.
Previosuly available "Retry" and "Quit" options are still present in read error prompt as well.
Exit code 12 is returned in case of read errors. This code is returned for all options in the read error prompt, including a newly introduced "Ignore" option.
Previously more common fatal error code 2 was returned for read errors.
New -ad2 switch places extracted files directly to archive's own folder. Unlike -ad1, it does not create a separate subfolder for each unpacked archive.
When unpacking a part of files from solid volume set, RAR attempts to skip volumes in the beginning and start extraction from volume closest to specified file and with reset solid statistics.
By default RAR resets the solid statistics in the beginning of large enough solid volumes where possible. For such volumes extracting a part of files from the middle of volume set can be faster now.
It does not affect performance when all archived files are unpacked.
Previously RAR automatically resorted to extracting from first volume, when user started extraction from non-first volume and first volume was available. Now RAR does so only if all volumes between first and specified are also available.
Switch -idn hides archived names output in archiving, extraction and some other commands. Other messages and total percentage are not affected.
You can use this switch to reduce visual clutter and console output overhead when archiving or extracting a lot of small files.
Minor visual artifacts, such as percentage indicator overwriting few last characters of error messages, are possible with -idn.
Switch -mci is removed. Optimized compression of Itanium executables is not supported anymore. RAR still can decompress already existing archives utilizing Itanium executable compression.

New in WinRAR 6.0 Beta 2 (Nov 13, 2020)

New in WinRAR 6.0 Beta 1 (Oct 22, 2020)

"Ignore" and "Ignore All" options are added to read error prompt. "Ignore" allows to continue processing with already read file part only and "Ignore All" does it for all future read errors.
For example, if you archive a file, which portion is locked by another process, and if "Ignore" is selected in read error prompt, only a part of file preceding the unreadable region will be saved into archive.
It can help to avoid interrupting lengthy archiving operations, though be aware that files archived with "Ignore" are incomplete.
If switch -y is specified, "Ignore" is applied to all files by default.
Previosuly available "Retry" and "Quit" options are still present in read error prompt as well.
Exit code 12 is returned in case of read errors. This code is returned for all options in the read error prompt, including a newly introduced "Ignore" option.
Previously more common fatal error code 2 was returned for read errors.
New -ad2 switch places extracted files directly to archive's own folder. Unlike -ad1, it does not create a separate subfolder for each unpacked archive.
When unpacking a part of files from solid volume set, RAR attempts to skip volumes in the beginning and start extraction from volume closest to specified file and with reset solid statistics.
By default RAR resets the solid statistics in the beginning of large enough solid volumes where possible. For such volumes extracting a part of files from the middle of volume set can be faster now.
It does not affect performance when all archived files are unpacked.
Previously RAR automatically resorted to extracting from first volume, when user started extraction from non-first volume and first volume was available. Now RAR does so only if all volumes between first and specified are also available.
Switch -idn hides archived names output in archiving, extraction and some other commands. Other messages and total percentage are not affected.
You can use this switch to reduce visual clutter and console output overhead when archiving or extracting a lot of small files.
Minor visual artifacts, such as percentage indicator overwriting few last characters of error messages, are possible with -idn.
Switch -mci is removed. Optimized compression of Itanium executables is not supported anymore. RAR still can decompress already existing archives utilizing Itanium executable compression.

New in WinRAR 5.91 (Jun 29, 2020)

New in WinRAR 5.90 (Mar 30, 2020)

New in WinRAR 5.90 Beta 3 (Feb 28, 2020)

New in WinRAR 5.90 Beta 2 (Feb 4, 2020)

New in WinRAR 5.90 Beta 1 (Jan 29, 2020)

New in WinRAR 5.80 (Dec 12, 2019)

New in WinRAR 5.8 Beta 4 (Nov 17, 2019)

New in WinRAR 5.8 Beta 3 (Oct 21, 2019)

New in WinRAR 5.8 Beta 2 (Sep 26, 2019)

New in WinRAR 5.8 Beta 1 (Aug 30, 2019)

New in WinRAR 5.71 (Apr 30, 2019)

New in WinRAR 5.71 Beta 2 (Apr 16, 2019)

New in WinRAR 5.71 Beta 1 (Apr 2, 2019)

New in WinRAR 5.70 (Feb 26, 2019)

New in WinRAR 5.70 Beta 2 (Feb 21, 2019)

New in WinRAR 5.70 Beta 1 (Jan 28, 2019)

"Files to process" option on "Time" page of archiving dialog allows to choose files based on modification, creation or last access file time. Previously it was possible for modification time only.
Command line -ta, -tb, -tn, -to switches accept 'm', 'c' and 'a' modifiers after the switch name. So file time conditions can include not only the file modification time as in previous versions, but also creation and last access time.
WinRAR file list can display creation and last access file times if they are available.
Creation and last access columns are disabled by default and can be enabled in "Select file list columns" dialog. This dialog is opened after right clicking on file list column headers or after pressing "File list/Files/Columns..." button in WinRAR settings.
"Double extensions for archives" and "Archives in subfolders" options on "Files" page of archiving dialog modify behavior of "Put each file to separate archive" option.
You can switch between archive names in filename.ext.rar and filename.rar style with "Double extensions for archives".
You can create a separate archive for every file in selected subfolders or store the entire contents of every selected folder in separate archive depending on the state of "Archives in subfolders" option.
New -ad1 switch can be used when unpacking multiple archives recursively, such as 'rar x -r -ad1 arc*.rar'. It creates a separate folder for files unpacked from each archive, but unlike already existing -ad switch, it creates such folders in each archive folder.
If context menu "Extract each archive to separate folder" is applied to archives from different folders in Windows Explorer "Search results", subfolders with unpacked files are created in each archive folder. Previous versions created them all in a folder of right clicked archive.
New "File list/List style/Checkboxes" option in WinRAR settings allows to use checkboxes to select file list items.
New "File list/Files/Exact sizes" option in WinRAR settings.
If this option is on, file sizes are always displayed in bytes. If it is off, sizes are rounded up and use units such as KB or MB. Smaller files can be still displayed in bytes.
If several console RAR are started with -ioff switch, PC is turned off by RAR copy finished last. Previously this switch was processed by first finished copy.
Read and write buffer size is increased for .iso files. It can help to improve .iso extraction performance in some cases, such as for network drives.
If "Delete archive" option in extraction dialog is applied to a set of RAR and REV volumes in volname.part# format, WinRAR will delete REV volumes as well. Previously only RAR volumes were deleted keeping REV files intact.
If "Delete archive" option in extraction dialog is applied to set of ZIP volumes with .zip.001, .zip.002, .zip.003 extensions, WinRAR will delete all ZIP volumes. Previously only .zip.001 volume was deleted for such volume naming scheme.
If we unpack arcname.rar using "Extract to arcname" Explorer context menu command and "arcname" file already exists, WinRAR shell extension will propose "Extract to arcname~1" instead. Previously this context menu command attempted to create a folder with same name as already existing file and failed.
If we pack a shortcut file with .lnk extension from Explorer context menu, .lnk file itself is added to archive. Previous versions added .lnk file target instead of .lnk file.
Total extraction progress is displayed for 7z multivolume archives. Accuracy of 7z total extraction progress is improved.
Nadav Grossman from Check Point Software Technologies informed us about a security vulnerability in UNACEV2.DLL library. Aforementioned vulnerability makes possible to create files in arbitrary folders inside or outside of destination folder when unpacking ACE archives.
WinRAR used this third party library to unpack ACE archives. UNACEV2.DLL had not been updated since 2005 and we do not have access to its source code. So we decided to drop ACE archive format support to protect security of WinRAR users.
We are thankful to Check Point Software Technologies for reporting this issue.
Bugs fixed:
Console RAR mixed up source and destination file sizes and times in the overwrite prompt when updating a file in RAR archive with -o switch;
Dragging files from 32-bit applications to 64-bit WinRAR window did not work;
WinRAR Shift+Del command applied to a folder could fail to delete some its subfolders. This command is used to delete files and folders permanently instead of moving them to Recycle Bin;
Folder tree panel could not change folders if archived pathnames started from path separator, such as in archives created by tar tool with --absolute-names option;
If relative "Path=.somefolder" was specified in SFX comment and SFX archive needed to elevate privileges when extracting, it created 'somefoldersomefolder' instead of 'somefolder';
Commands modifying an existing RAR4 volume reset the volume number field to 1. While it did not affect extraction, WinRAR displayed a wrong volume number for such volumes;
Fixed a crash when reading a comment from a corrupt RAR file;
Toolbar in "Find" command "Search results" window was not adjusted to different toolbar icon sizes properly.

New in WinRAR 5.61 (Oct 1, 2018)

New in WinRAR 5.61 Beta 1 (Sep 3, 2018)

New in WinRAR 5.60 (Jul 2, 2018)

New in WinRAR 5.60 Beta 5 (Jun 5, 2018)

New in WinRAR 5.60 Beta 1 (Mar 12, 2018)

New in WinRAR 5.50 (Aug 28, 2017)

New in WinRAR 5.50 Beta 6 (Jul 27, 2017)

New in WinRAR 5.50 Beta 5 (Jul 3, 2017)

New in WinRAR 5.50 Beta 4 (Jun 19, 2017)

New in WinRAR 5.50 Beta 2 (May 5, 2017)

New in WinRAR 5.50 Beta 1 (Apr 13, 2017)

New in WinRAR 5.40 (Aug 16, 2016)

New in WinRAR 5.40 Beta 4 (Jul 21, 2016)

New in WinRAR 5.40 Beta 3 (Jul 2, 2016)

New in WinRAR 5.40 Beta 2 (May 30, 2016)

New in WinRAR 5.40 Beta 1 (May 10, 2016)

New in WinRAR 5.30 (Nov 24, 2015)

New in WinRAR 5.30 Beta 6 (Oct 27, 2015)

New in WinRAR 5.30 Beta 5 (Oct 8, 2015)

New in WinRAR 5.30 Beta 4 (Sep 13, 2015)

New in WinRAR 5.30 Beta 3 (Aug 27, 2015)

New in WinRAR 5.30 Beta 2 (Aug 4, 2015)

New in WinRAR 5.30 Beta 1 (Jul 20, 2015)

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.
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.
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.
Folder wildcards are allowed in RAR command line in file names to archive. For example: rar a backup c:\backup\2015*\*
Recursion is enabled automatically for such folder wildcards even if -r switch is not specified.
"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.
"Skip encrypted" option in "Find files" dialog to silently skip encrypted archives while performing search command.
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.
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.
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.
Sleep time parameter in -ri[:] 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.
Console RAR "l" and "v" commands display file time in YYYY-MM-DD format.
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.
Modification time is set for all folders created when unpacking .7z archives. Previous versions set it only for non-empty folders.
WinRAR prevents a computer to go to sleep by inactivity timeout until current operation, such as archiving, extraction or another archive processing, is done.
Total progress bar is displayed when extracting .arj, .lzh and .cab archives (except multivolume archives).
Progress bar is displayed when deleting files after archiving and when clearing "Archive" attribute of archived files.
"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.
Bugs fixed:
console RAR crashed instead of displaying an overwrite prompt when attempting to add files to already existing volumes;
console RAR "lt" command did not display seconds in file timestamp;
WinRAR failed to decompress .xxe files if they did not include "section N of xxencode" string in the body;
RAR could not restore contents of NTFS alternate data stream saved with -os switch if it was split between different volumes.

New in WinRAR 5.21 (Feb 16, 2015)

New in WinRAR 5.21 Beta 2 (Jan 31, 2015)

New in WinRAR 5.21 Beta 1 (Jan 9, 2015)

New in WinRAR 5.20 (Dec 2, 2014)

New in WinRAR 5.20 Beta 4 (Nov 17, 2014)

New in WinRAR 5.20 Beta 3 (Nov 3, 2014)

New in WinRAR 5.20 Beta 2 (Oct 20, 2014)

New in WinRAR 5.20 Beta 1 (Oct 6, 2014)

New in WinRAR 5.11 (Sep 1, 2014)

New in WinRAR 5.11 Beta 1 (Aug 6, 2014)

New in WinRAR 5.10 (Jun 11, 2014)

New in WinRAR 5.10 Beta 4 (May 6, 2014)

New in WinRAR 5.10 Beta 3 (Apr 23, 2014)

New in WinRAR 5.10 Beta 2 (Apr 7, 2014)

New in WinRAR 5.10 Beta 1 (Mar 18, 2014)

New in WinRAR 5.01 (Dec 3, 2013)

New in WinRAR 5.01 Beta 1 (Nov 12, 2013)

New in WinRAR 5.00 (Sep 3, 2013)

New RAR 5.0 archiving format. You can use -ma command line switch to create RAR 5.0 archives. By default RAR creates archives in 4.x format.
Changes in RAR 5.0 compression algorithm:
maximum compression dictionary size is increased up to 1 GB in 64 bit RAR. 32 bit RAR version can use up to 256 MB dictionary when creating an archive. Both 32 bit and 64 bit versions can unpack archives with any dictionary size, including 1 GB;
default dictionary size for RAR 5.0 is 32 MB, typically resulting in higher compression ratio and lower speed than RAR 4.x 4 MB. You can use -md switch to change this value;
-md switch syntax is modified to support larger dictionary sizes. Append 'k', 'm' and 'g' modifiers to specify the size in kilo-, mega- and gigabytes, like -md64m for 64 MB dictionary. If modifiers are not present, megabytes are assumed, so -md64m is equal to -md64;
RAR 5.0 format includes Intel IA-32 executable and delta compression algorithms, but RAR 4.x text, audio, true color and Itanium algorithms are not supported. These excluded algorithms are not efficient for modern data types and hardware configurations;
RAR 5.0 decompression can utilize several CPU cores. Though not to same extent as in compression algorithm, it improves the decompression speed on large files with poorly compressible data or when using BLAKE2 checksums.
Changes in RAR 5.0 archive format:
file times are stored as Coordinated Universal Time (UTC) instead of former local time, making file exchange among several time zones more straightforward;
file names and archive comments use UTF-8 encoding.
RAR 5.0 recovery record is based on Reed-Solomon error correction codes. If recovery record size is large enough, 5% and more, the new error correction scheme provides much higher resistance to multiple damages comparing to RAR 4.x recovery record.
Smaller record, such as 1 - 2%, or less random damage type would result in less difference between 4.x and 5.0. For single continuous damage 4.x and 5.0 efficiency is about the same.
Additionally to usual data erasures, the new recovery record is able to detect deletions and insertions of much larger size than in previous RAR versions. Maximum insertion size is several megabytes. Maximum deletion size depends on the damage type and in some cases can be as large as the recovery record size.
Still, the best recovery performance and efficiency is achieved if no deletions and insertions are present, so all data including damaged sectors preserve their original positions. Thus, if you use some special software to copy an archive from damaged media, it is better to choose the mode, when damaged sectors are filled by zeroes or any other data instead of cutting them out completely from resulting file.
RAR 5.0 recovery record is more resistant to damage of recovery record itself and can utilize a partially corrupt recovery record data. Note, though, that "Repair" command does not fix broken blocks in recovery record. Only file data are corrected. After successful archive repair, you may need to create a new recovery record for saved files.
New recovery record is not based on 512 byte sectors anymore and incorporates more complicated data structures. So it is impossible to specify its size in sectors. For RAR 5.0 archives the parameter of -rr[N] switch and rr[N] command is always treated as a percent of archive size regardless of presence of % character. Typically N% recovery record can repair up to N% of continuously damaged data and increases the archive size by only slightly more than N%. Ability to fix multiple damages is proportional to N.
We used "Screaming Fast Galois Field Arithmetic Using Intel SIMD Instructions" paper by James S. Plank, Kevin M. Greenan and Ethan L. Miller to improve Reed-Solomon coding performance. Also we are grateful to Artem Drobanov and Bulat Ziganshin for samples and ideas allowed to make Reed-Solomon coding more efficient.
"Test" command verifies validity of RAR 5.0 recovery record. Recovery record is tested after processing all archived files.
If corrupt archive contains the recovery record, it might be possible to repair it even if recovery record validity test is failed. "Repair" command attempts to utilize even a partially damaged recovery record. So treat the negative recovery record test result as a reason to re-create the archive if original files are still available, but not as a reason to avoid "Repair" command.
Changes in RAR 5.0 encryption algorithm:
encryption algorithm is changed from AES-128 to AES-256 in CBC mode. Key derivation function is based on PBKDF2 using HMAC-SHA256;
special password verification value allows to detect most of wrong passwords without necessity to unpack the entire file;
if archive headers are not encrypted ("Encrypt file names" option is off), file checksums for encrypted RAR 5.0 files are modified using a special password dependent algorithm, to make impossible guessing file contents based on checksums. Do not expect such encrypted file checksums to match usual CRC32 and BLAKE2 values.
Switch -htb allows to utilize 256 bit length BLAKE2sp hash ( https://blake2.net ) instead of 32 bit CRC32 as a file checksum.
While producing slightly larger archives, BLAKE2 can be used for file contents identification. If two files have the same BLAKE2 value, it practically guarantees that file contents is the same. BLAKE2 error detection property is also stronger than in much shorter CRC32.
Features removed:
authenticity verification feature did not provide the required level of reliability and was removed;
switch -en (do not add "end of archive" block) is not supported by RAR 5.0 archives, which always have the end of archive block. This block helps RAR to safely skip external data like digital signatures appended to archive;
old style extension based arcname.rNN volume names are not supported by RAR 5.0 archives, which use only arcname.partN.rar volume names;
file comments are not supported anymore both in RAR 4.x and RAR 5.0 archives. Console RAR 'cf' command is removed. It does not affect the archive comment support, which is present in both versions of archive format and is not planned for removal.
Switch -oh stores hard links as link instead of file. It is available only for RAR 5.0 archive format.
Changes in recovery volume processing in RAR 5.0 archive format:
maximum number of RAR+REV volumes in RAR 5.0 format is 65535 instead of 255;
recovery volume operations are faster than in RAR 4.x;
additionally to recovery data, RAR 5.0 REV files also store service information such as checksums of protected RAR files. So they are slightly larger than RAR volumes which they protect. If you plan to copy individual RAR and REV files to some removable media, you need to take it into account and specify RAR volume size by a few kilobytes smaller than media size.
Command line RAR returns the exit code 11 if it can detect that user entered a wrong password. This code can be returned only for RAR 5.0 archives. It is impossible to distinguish a wrong password and data damage for RAR 4.x archives.
'v' and 'l' commands display archived file names in the end of line, not in that beginning as before. Also some fields previously available in 'l' and 'v' output are now shown only by 'lt' and 'vt'.
'vt' and 'lt' commands provide the detailed multiline information for every archived file.
'vta' and 'lta' also include service headers into list.
UTF-16 little endian encoding is used in RAR log file rar.log, so Unicode file names are stored in the log correctly.
You can use -scg switch to change the default log file encoding, such as -scag for native single byte encoding.
Command line 'r' (repair) command can include an optional destpath\ parameter defining the destination folder for repaired archive: rar r archive.rar destpath\

New in WinRAR 5.00 Beta 8 (Aug 5, 2013)

New in WinRAR 5.00 Beta 7 (Jul 15, 2013)

New in WinRAR 5.00 Beta 6 (Jun 19, 2013)

New in WinRAR 5.00 Beta 5 (Jun 3, 2013)

New in WinRAR 5.00 Beta 4 (May 20, 2013)

New in WinRAR 5.00 Beta 3 (May 9, 2013)

New in WinRAR 5.00 Beta 2 (Apr 30, 2013)

New in WinRAR 5.00 Beta 1 (Apr 29, 2013)

New RAR 5.0 archiving format. You can use -ma command line switch to create RAR 5.0 archives. By default RAR creates archives in 4.x format.
Changes in RAR 5.0 compression algorithm:
maximum compression dictionary size is increased up to 1 GB in 64 bit RAR. 32 bit RAR version can use up to 256 MB dictionary when creating an archive. Both 32 bit and 64 bit versions can unpack archives with any dictionary size, including 1 GB;
default dictionary size for RAR 5.0 is 32 MB, typically resulting in higher compression ratio and lower speed than RAR 4.x 4 MB. You can use -md switch to change this value;
-md switch syntax is modified to support larger dictionary sizes. Append 'k', 'm' and 'g' modifiers to specify the size in kilo-, mega- and gigabytes, like -md64m for 64 MB dictionary. If modifiers are not present, megabytes are assumed, so -md64m is equal to -md64;
RAR 5.0 format includes Intel IA-32 executable and delta compression algorithms, but RAR 4.x text, audio, true color and Itanium algorithms are not supported. These excluded algorithms are not efficient for modern data types and hardware configurations;
RAR 5.0 decompression can utilize several CPU cores. Though not to same extent as in compression algorithm, it improves the decompression speed on large files with poorly compressible data or when using BLAKE2 checksums.
Changes in RAR 5.0 archive format:
file times are stored as Coordinated Universal Time (UTC) instead of former local time, making file exchange among several time zones more straightforward;
file names and archive comments use UTF-8 encoding.
RAR 5.0 recovery record is based on Reed-Solomon error correction codes. If recovery record size is large enough, 5% and more, the new error correction scheme provides much higher resistance to multiple damages comparing to RAR 4.x recovery record. Smaller record, such as 1 - 2%, or less random damage type would result in less difference between 4.x and 5.0. For single continuous damage 4.x and 5.0 efficiency is about the same.
Additionally to usual data erasures, the new recovery record is able to detect deletions and insertions of much larger size than in previous RAR versions. Maximum insertion size is several megabytes. Maximum deletion size depends on the damage type and in some cases can be as large as the recovery record size. Still, the best recovery performance and efficiency is achieved if no deletions and insertions are present, so all data including damaged sectors preserve their original positions. Thus, if you use some special software to copy an archive from damaged media, it is better to choose the mode, when damaged sectors are filled by zeroes or any other data instead of cutting them out completely from resulting file.
RAR 5.0 recovery record is more resistant to damage of recovery record itself and can utilize a partially corrupt recovery record data. Note, though, that "Repair" command does not fix broken blocks in recovery record. Only file data are corrected. After successful archive repair, you may need to create a new recovery record for saved files.
New recovery record is not based on 512 byte sectors anymore and incorporates more complicated data structures. So it is impossible to specify its size in sectors. For RAR 5.0 archives the parameter of -rr[N] switch and rr[N] command is always treated as a percent of archive size regardless of presence of % character. Typically N% recovery record can repair up to N% of continuously damaged data and increases the archive size by only slightly more than N%. Ability to fix multiple damages is proportional to N.
We used "Screaming Fast Galois Field Arithmetic Using Intel SIMD Instructions" paper by James S. Plank, Kevin M. Greenan and Ethan L. Miller to improve Reed-Solomon coding performance. Also we are grateful to Artem Drobanov and Bulat Ziganshin for samples and ideas allowed to make Reed-Solomon coding more efficient.
"Test" command verifies validity of RAR 5.0 recovery record. Recovery record is tested after processing all archived files.
If corrupt archive contains the recovery record, it might be possible to repair it even if recovery record validity test is failed. "Repair" command attempts to utilize even a partially damaged recovery record. So treat the negative recovery record test result as a reason to re-create the archive if original files are still available, but not as a reason to avoid "Repair" command.
Changes in RAR 5.0 encryption algorithm:
encryption algorithm is changed from AES-128 to AES-256 in CBC mode. Key derivation function is based on PBKDF2 using HMAC-SHA256;
special password verification value allows to detect most of wrong passwords without necessity to unpack the entire file;
if archive headers are not encrypted ("Encrypt file names" option is off), file checksums for encrypted RAR 5.0 files are modified using a special password dependent algorithm, to make impossible guessing file contents based on checksums. Do not expect such encrypted file checksums to match usual CRC32 and BLAKE2 values.
Switch -htb allows to utilize 256 bit length BLAKE2sp hash ( https://blake2.net ) instead of 32 bit CRC32 as a file checksum.
While producing slightly larger archives, BLAKE2 can be used for file contents identification. If two files have the same BLAKE2 value, it practically guarantees that file contents is the same. BLAKE2 error detection property is also stronger than in much shorter CRC32.
Features removed:
authenticity verification feature did not provide the required level of reliability and was removed; b) switch -en (do not add "end of archive" block) is not supported by RAR 5.0 archives, which always have the end of archive block. This block helps RAR to safely skip external data like digital signatures appended to archive;
old style extension based arcname.rNN volume names are not supported by RAR 5.0 archives, which use only arcname.partN.rar volume names; d) file comments are not supported anymore both in RAR 4.x and RAR 5.0 archives. Console RAR 'cf' command is removed. It does not affect the archive comment support, which is present in both versions of archive format and is not planned for removal.
Switch -oh stores hard links as link instead of file. It is available only for RAR 5.0 archive format.
Changes in recovery volume processing in RAR 5.0 archive format:
maximum number of RAR+REV volumes in RAR 5.0 format is 65535 instead of 255;
recovery volume operations are faster than in RAR 4.x;
additionally to recovery data, RAR 5.0 REV files also store service information such as checksums of protected RAR files. So they are slightly larger than RAR volumes which they protect. If you plan to copy individual RAR and REV files to some removable media, you need to take it into account and specify RAR volume size by a few kilobytes smaller than media size.
Command line RAR returns the exit code 11 if it can detect that user entered a wrong password. This code can be returned only for RAR 5.0 archives. It is impossible to distinguish a wrong password and data damage for RAR 4.x archives.
'v' and 'l' commands display archived file names in the end of line, not in that beginning as before. Also some fields previously available in 'l' and 'v' output are now shown only by 'lt' and 'vt'. 'vt' and 'lt' commands provide the detailed multiline information for every archived file.
'vta' and 'lta' also include service headers into list.
UTF-16 little endian encoding is used in RAR log file rar.log, so Unicode file names are stored in the log correctly.
Command line 'r' (repair) command can include an optional destpath\ parameter defining the destination folder for repaired archive: rar r archive.rar destpath\

New in WinRAR 4.20 (Jun 14, 2012)

Changes in RAR compression:
RAR general compression algorithm is optimized for better utilization of several processor cores. While some speed gain is possible even in single processor mode, best results are achieved in multi-core environment.
Speed gain depends on data type and average file size. Several cores are utilized more efficiently when compressing large files.
We had to increase memory requirements to achieve higher compression speed. General RAR compression algorithm allocates about 120 MB comparing to 40 MB in WinRAR 4.11;
RAR text compression algorithm cannot utilize several CPU cores efficiently, so its performance in multiprocessor environment is much lower than for general algorithm. Also its decompression speed is much lower than in general algorithm regardless of CPU number. So we decided to disable the text algorithm by default.
If you need maximum possible compression ratio for plain text data regardless of speed, you can enable the text compression in "Advanced compression parameter" dialog. Press "Compression..." button on "Advanced" page of archiving dialog to access it. You can also change this option permanently in default compression profile;
In the command line mode the text compression can be enabled with -mct switch;
"Fastest" (-m1) compression mode also supports several processor cores now. In 4.11 it could use only a single processor core.
RAR general decompression algorithm speed is slightly improved, though not to same extent as RAR compression. RAR decompression is not able to use several processor cores, so its performance does not depend on a number of cores.
Changes in ZIP compression:
now ZIP compression supports several processor cores resulting in noticeably higher performance in multi-core environment. Single CPU ZIP compression is also faster than in 4.11;
memory use for ZIP compression is increased to about 15 MB.
Recovery volume creating and processing can use several CPU cores resulting in higher speed. Though, typically hard drive seek speed is a limiting factor for recovery volumes, so this gain is most noticeable when working with solid state drive.
Now the allowed value for -mt switch is 1 - 32, not 0 - 16 as before.
"Find files" command can search data in 7-Zip archives. Previously "Find files" did not support .7z archive format.
Windows 2000 is not supported by WinRAR and WinRAR self-extracting modules anymore.
"Save current settings" button in "Advanced SFX options" dialog is now available only when converting an existing archive to SFX. Options saved with this button are applied only to convert to SFX operation.
If you create or update SFX archive, only SFX options stored in default compression profile are used. Options saved in "Advanced SFX options" dialog are ignored for these operations.

New in WinRAR 4.20 Beta 3 (Jun 2, 2012)

New in WinRAR 4.20 Beta 2 (May 14, 2012)

New in WinRAR 4.20 Beta 1 (May 3, 2012)

New in WinRAR 4.11 (Feb 20, 2012)

New in WinRAR 4.10 (Jan 17, 2012)

New in WinRAR 4.10 Beta 5 (Dec 15, 2011)

New in WinRAR 4.10 Beta 4 (Nov 29, 2011)

New in WinRAR 4.10 Beta 3 (Nov 17, 2011)

New in WinRAR 4.10 Beta 2 (Oct 27, 2011)

New in WinRAR 4.10 Beta 1 (Oct 4, 2011)

WinRAR can create ZIP archives of practically any size. 2 GB archive size and 65535 file number ZIP limitations of previous WinRAR versions are not valid anymore.
WinRAR can create multivolume ZIP archives, which are also known as split ZIP files. ZIP volumes have names like 'volname.zip', 'volname.z01', 'volname.z02'. Use a volume with ".zip" file extension in all archive processing operations like starting extraction or opening an archive. Unlike RAR volumes, ZIP volumes cannot be self-extracting. WinRAR needs to have access to all ZIP volumes of multivolume file set at the same time, when creating or unpacking them. So it is impossible to create or unpack ZIP volumes on removable disks, one volume per disk. You need to create them all in the same folder.
Added the high precision file time support in ZIP archives. WinRAR can store and extract modification, creation and last access file time in ZIP archives with 100 nanosecond precision. You need to set "High precision modification time" option in "Time" part of archiving dialog to store all 3 times in archive. Set appropriate "File time" options in "Advanced" part of extraction dialog to choose times to extract.
Added support for Unicode names stored in ZIP extra field data. Different ZIP tools store Unicode names either in file header or in ZIP extra field and now WinRAR can correctly process both types of Unicode names.
"Synchronize archive contents" option and -as command line switch are supported in ZIP format.
Modifications of switch -ag behavior:
-ag can be used with all RAR and WinRAR commands, not just with archiving only;
'N' format character behavior differs in archiving and non-archiving operations. When archiving, it is incremented until the first unused name is found. In non-archiving operations like extracting it selects the existing archive preceding the first unused name;
'I' format character allows to specify minutes regardless of presence and position of 'H' (hours) in format string. It can be used instead of 'M' (minutes), when you wish to place minutes before hours or do not need hours at all.
By default, WinRAR proposes to update an archive if viewer modified an opened file or created any new files. New "Ignore modifications for" option in "Settings/Viewer" dialog allows to disable such behavior. You can enter one or several file masks separated by spaces here and WinRAR will not prompt to update an archive if file created or modified by viewer matches one of these masks.
Changes in volume size input field. Now you can select size units in the drop down list to the right of volume size. Previous way to define size modifiers, by entering 'k', 'm', etc. character after the numeric size value, is also supported.
Changes in "Predefined sizes" in "Define volume sizes" dialog. Floppies and ZIP disks are replaced by 5 MB and 100 MB volumes, added new entries for maximum FAT32 file size and for Blu-ray disks.
New "Wipe files if password is set" option in "Options" page of archiving dialog. If you prefer to always delete encrypted files securely, you can enable "Wipe files if password is set" in the default compression profile.
New "Wipe temporary files/Encrypted only" option in "Settings/Security". It allows to use a slower and more secure delete for temporary files extracted from archives identified by WinRAR as encrypted. Quick delete is used for all other temporary files.
Changes in "Convert archives" command:
Now it is possible to convert encrypted archives. Previously "Convert archives" command skipped them. Though, if you still prefer to skip them, you can do it by enabling "Skip encrypted archives" option in "Convert archives" dialog. It might be useful if you wish to run the conversion command in unattended mode, avoiding password prompts;
Special "rar2" archive type, which was specific for RAR 1.x and 2.x archives, is removed. Now "rar" archive type controls conversion of all versions of RAR archives. Since the convert command does not need to detect RAR archive version anymore, the initial search for archives is performed faster, resulting in shorter delay before displaying "Convert archives" dialog.
New -log[fmt][=name] switch allows to write archive and file names to log file in archiving command for RAR and ZIP formats and also in extracting, deleting and listing commands for RAR format. This switch is especially useful, when you need to further process an archive created with -ag or -v switches, because -log provides the archive name generated by WinRAR.
New -@[+] switch allows to process all parameters starting from '@' character either as file names (-@) or as file lists (-@+).
"Setup program" SFX options are moved from "General" to "Setup" page of "Advanced SFX options" dialog. Both "Run after extraction" and "Run before extraction" are now multiline, so it is possible to specify several setup programs for same SFX archive.
"SetupCode" SFX script command instructs SFX archive to wait for termination of setup program and return the exit code of setup program increased by 1000 as the exit code of SFX executable.
GUI equivalent of this command is "Wait and return exit code" option on "Setup" page of "Advanced SFX options" dialog.
SFX does not support "S" (create in the top level of Start Menu) "Shortcut" command mode anymore. Recent Windows versions do not allow programs to add items to the top of Start Menu.

New in WinRAR 4.01 (May 30, 2011)

New in WinRAR 4.01 Beta 1 (May 10, 2011)

New in WinRAR 4.00 (Mar 8, 2011)

RAR decompression speed is improved. Depending on data type, decompression can be up to 30% faster than in previous versions.
Both the general RAR algorithm and most of special RAR multimedia methods benefit from this improvement. The only module of RAR algorithm, which is not affected, is "Text compression" method.
Changes in ISO support:
UDF support is upgraded to UDF 2.50 revision. It makes possible to unpack most of Blu-ray ISO files;
when browsing UDF ISO file, UDF revision number is displayed after the "UDF" format name in WinRAR address bar and in archive information dialog;
WinRAR sets the folder modification date when unpacking folders stored in UDF and ISO9660 files.
Changes in password dialog:
WinRAR uses the same format of password dialog both when archiving and extracting, so "Show password" option is available also when extracting
"Organize passwords..." button in password dialog provides access to password organizer interface, where you can specify your frequently used passwords. You will be able to access these saved passwords using the drop down list or autocomplete feature in password dialog. It is important to know that saved passwords are not encrypted
and anybody having access to your computer can view them. Use "Organize passwords" feature only if your computer is protected from unauthorized access;
"Use for all archives" option is available in password dialog when unpacking several archives at once. You can utilize it to apply an entered password to all archives. If you use this option with an empty password, WinRAR will skip all encrypted archives;
Unlike previous versions, the password from default compression profile is not used for extraction.
If you wish to use the same password for all extracting archives, press "Organize passwords..." button in the password dialog and define a new password entry, specifying "*" file mask in "Select for archives" field.
In Windows 7 WinRAR will display the total operation progress also on WinRAR icon on Windows taskbar. You can disable it using "Taskbar progress bar" option on "General" page of WinRAR settings.
Numerous Unicode support improvements allow to process non-English
file names more smoothly. These improvements include:
better Unicode handling in WinRAR in "Rename", "Convert", "Find" and other commands, in folder tree panel, in password request dialog and in many other parts of WinRAR interface;
correctly displayed Unicode names in WinRAR items in Explorer context menus;
Unicode support in .lng files, making WinRAR localization possible for Unicode only languages.
Changes in -x switch syntax. Now you can specify a wildcard exclusion mask for folders. Such mask must have the trailing '\' character, like -x*tmp*\ or -x*\temp\
New "Extract relative paths" option in "Advanced" part of extraction dialog. If you browse some archive subfolder in WinRAR shell and enable "Extract relative paths" option, the path part up to and including the current subfolder will be removed from extracted file paths. For example, if you are inside of "Backup\MyData" archive folder and extract "Images" folder, it will be extracted as "Images", not as "Backup\MyData\Images". This option is the new default extraction mode, but you can change the default back to WinRAR 3.x style. Just select "Extract full paths" and then press "Save settings" in "General" part of extraction dialog.
Windows 98, Windows Me and Windows NT are not supported by WinRAR
and WinRAR self-extracting modules anymore. Minimum Windows version required for WinRAR 4.0 is Windows 2000.
If TAR, TAR.GZ or TAR.BZ2 archive contains symbolic or hard links and if destination file system is NTFS, WinRAR will create these links when unpacking such archive. WinRAR will create symbolic link as symbolic and hard links as hard in Windows Vista and newer and it will create all links as hard in older Windows. If destination file system is FAT32 or any other not supporting file links, WinRAR will skip links when unpacking TAR, TAR.GZ
and TAR.BZ2 archives.
Recovery volume processing involves less disk seek operations
resulting in higher performance.
You can select Windows 7 library in tree panel in extraction dialog and WinRAR will use its default save location as the destination path.
"Report" command allows to select HTML, Unicode text and usual text as output format for report file. Unlike previous WinRAR versions, now WinRAR preservers Unicode characters in reports when using HTML or Unicode text format. So non-English characters in file names will be displayed properly in such reports.
Message list in GUI SFX archives displays only operation status and error messages. It does not contain names of all extracted files anymore. This change improves the speed and reduces memory requirements for SFX archives containing a large number of files. Also it makes easier to locate error messages, because they are not hidden among extracted file names.
GUI SFX archives display "Extract" button instead of "Install" if no "Setup" or "Presetup" commands are present in the archive comment. If you prefer "Install" button, but do not need to execute any setup programs, you can add "Setup=" command.
WinRAR displays the current percent above the operation progress bar when repairing an archive containing the recovery record and when processing recovery volumes.
WinRAR limits the maximum possible volume size to 4 GB minus 1 byte when creating RAR volumes on a disk with FAT or FAT32 file system in volume size autodetecting mode. These file systems do not support 4 GB and larger files.
If "Wait if other WinRAR copies are active" option is enabled and WinRAR waits for another copy, you can press "Continue" button in command progress window to force WinRAR to stop waiting. So now "Continue" button allows to override the state of "Wait if other WinRAR copies are active" option for current operation.
WinRAR displays one password request instead of two, when saving an encrypted file back to RAR or ZIP archive after modifying it in some external editor. Previous WinRAR versions usually requested the password twice, both when extracting the original file and archiving its modified copy. Only RAR archives with encrypted file names were processed with the single password prompt.
New error code 10 ("no files") is added to list of error codes returned in command line mode by RAR and WinRAR. This new code can be returned by archive, extract, delete and repair commands. It means that RAR did not find any files matched the specified file or archive mask.
File name area in file overwrite dialog occupies several lines now. It makes possible to display much longer names. Now switch -ep3 converts not only disk letters, but also UNC paths. So \\server\share will be converted to __server\share when archiving and restored to the original \\server\share when extracting with -ep3.
New "Background extraction" option in "Advanced" part of extraction dialog places WinRAR into background, when extracting files. You can save its default state with "Save settings" button in "General" part of extraction dialog, just like for other extraction options. "Background archiving" option from the default compression profile does not affect the extraction behavior anymore.
"Mode..." button in operation progress window is enabled also when extracting or testing archives. It provides access to "Command parameters" dialog, where you can set "Turn PC off when done" option for extraction and test operations. Previously this dialog was accessible only when archiving.
Bugs fixed:
renaming a file in archive could also rename all other files with the same name in other folders of the same archive;
previous versions displayed the wrong total packed size in "Info" command for multivolume CAB archives;
in ZIP archives 'U' (update) and 'F' (fresh) commands could erroneously update even files not specified in the command line. It happened only for files in current folder which names matched files in ZIP archive. This bug was not present in usual 'A' (add) archiving mode.