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Version history for WinRAR (64-bit)

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Changes for v5.80 - v5.90

RAR Compression Speed Enhancements
More and more multi-core CPUs with 16 or more cores are released and installed on users’ PCs, and with the new WinRAR 5.90 version, these CPU improvements can dramatically increase the RAR compression speed in such environments. This optimization of the RAR5 compression speed, with the normal and fastest method, will provide a higher ratio on all CPUs and work even faster on high-core-count CPUs with 16 or more cores. In addition, it increases the maximum number of used threads from 32 to 64. For command-line users, the -mt switch now accepts values of 1 to 64.
Wide Format Support
WinRAR is the best choice for handling compressed formats such as RAR, ZIP, CAB, ARJ, TAR, 7-zip and many more. To continue to support a wide range of compression formats, we have also added extraction support for GZIP archives with an optional header checksum field.
Usability Enhancements
WinRAR now displays packed and unpacked folder sizes when browsing in the archive contents. Also, the user can now resize archiving and extraction progress windows and some other progress windows.
The repair feature of RAR5 archives with recovery records and without data shifts has been improved compared to previous versions. It is now possible to repair RAR5 archives with encrypted file names without providing a password, but the user still requires the password to open the repaired archive!

Changes for v5.71 - v5.80

1. "Preserve source files last access time" option on "Time" page
of archiving dialog permits to preserve the original last access time
of archiving files.
2. Command line -tsp switch can be used to preserve the original
last access time of archiving files. It can be combined with other
-ts switches, like: rar a -tsc -tsp arcname files
3. It is allowed to combine several modifiers in the same -ts switch.
For example, we can use -tscap instead -tsc -tsa -tsp.
4. WinRAR can read default values of command line switches from rar.ini
text file, which can be stored either in the same folder as WinRAR.exe
or in %APPDATA%\WinRAR folder. This file includes strings in following
format:
switches=
switches_=
First applies switches to all and second to individual commands.
For example:
switches=-m5 -s
switches_x=-o+
Most of switches specified in rar.ini are used only in the command line
mode. Some switches can be applicable both in shell and in command line
modes. Previously this rar.ini format was supported only by console RAR.
5. Command line -agf switch specifies the default format
string for -ag switch. It has a practical value only if placed to
rar.ini configuration file or to RAR environment variable.
For example, if we set RAR environment variable to -agfYYYY-MMM-DD,
we can use -ag without a parameter with YYYY-MMM-DD format string
assumed.
6. Switches -ed and -e+d can be used in archive processing commands
for any combination of RAR and archive operating systems.
In older versions RAR for Windows could not use them for Unix RAR
archives also as RAR for Unix for Windows RAR archives.
7. Previously "Test" command failed to check integrity of archived NTFS
alternate data streams and issued "Unknown data header format" warning
if size of such stream exceeded 16 MB. This limitation is removed now.
8. Archiving speed for large NTFS alternate data streams on multi-core
CPUs is increased.
9. "Find" command:
a) when extracting encrypted files directly from "Search results"
dialog, password prompt was issued for every found file
even if all files belonged to same archive.
Now password is requested only once per archive;
b) Ctrl+A hotkey selects all files in "Search results".
10. Archive comment window:
a) previous versions did not allow to use Ctrl+W shortcut to close
WinRAR when comment window had keyboard focus. Now Ctrl+W works
also from comment window;
b) mouse wheel is supported also for comments with ANSI Escape sequences;
c) for some lenghty comments with ANSI Escape sequences last line
of comment was visible only partially even after scrolling up to
bottom. It is displayed comletely now.
11. Maximum path length for files in 7z archives is increased up to
2048 characters. While such lengthy paths were already supported
for RAR and ZIP formats, previous versions limited the path length
to 260 characters for 7z archives.
12. If archive or file name is too lengthy to fit to archiving
or extraction progress window, it is truncated. Previously such names
were truncated at the end, making the file extension invisible.
This version truncates them removing the path component and symbols
in the middle, but preserving beginning of file name and file extension.
13. If files selected for archiving differ only by extension,
a proposed archive name is based on their name part.
For example, archiving dialog will propose Readme.rar if we selected
Readme.txt and Readme.doc.
Previous versions always generated the archive name based on parent
folder name for several selected files.
14. "Symlink" and "Hardlink" is diplayed in "Type" column for symlink
and hardlink records in .tar archives. Previous versions displayed
a proper type for such records only in .rar archives.
15. Copying and pasting files from large archives could fail if
extraction took a lot of time. This version can paste files from
such archives as well, but we have to start extraction already on
"Copy" command and not on "Paste" to achieve this.
16. Similarly to RAR5 volumes, recovery volumes in RAR4 format use
the same width of volume number field as corresponding RAR volumes.
While previously WinRAR could create arc.part01.rar and arc.part1.rev
in RAR4 format, now both types of volumes will use "part01".
17. "Set font..." button in "Settings/File list" also changes the folder
tree panel font. Previously it changed only the file list font.
18. "Find files" and command line mode "i" commands:
a) if "Use all tables" option or "t" modifer of "i" command are used,
additionally to already supported ANSI, OEM and UTF-16 encodings
WinRAR will search the specified string in UTF-8 files as well;
b) better support for Unicode text strings;
c) better performance, especially for case insensitive search;
d) hexadecimal search output includes both text and hexadecimal
representation of found matches.
19. File and total progress bar is displayed when unpacking
tar.bz2, tar.gz, tar.lz, tar.xz, tar.z archives.
Previously only the total progress was displayed properly for tar.bz2,
tar.gz and tar.z. Neither file nor total progress was displayed
for tar.lz and tar.xz.
20. "File list/Files/Exact sizes" option also changes the file size format
in WinRAR status bar.
21. Bugs fixed:
a) if non-existent path is specified in archive name in archiving
dialog, WinRAR proposes to create such path. Previous versions
could create such path in WinRAR start-up folder instead of
currently displayed folder;
b) WinRAR could crash when adding the recovery record in RAR5 format
on CPUs not supporting CPUID EAX=7 command and returning random
data in response. These are some CPUs from early 2000s;
c) WinRAR failed to create archives after dragging files with
right mouse button in Windows shell, dropping them to another folder,
selecting "Add to archive..." in context menu and enabling
"Put each file to separate archive" option;
d) "winrar r *.zip" command repaired only the first ZIP archive
in the set if all archives had numeric names like 1.zip, 2.zip
and signatures in the beginning of archives were missing;
e) previous WinRAR version failed to unpack folder records
in archives created by RAR 1.50;
f) in rare cases WinRAR failed to extract and reported an error
for valid .gz archives produced by some compression optimization
tools;
g) progress bar in tray icon never reached 100% in high DPI mode;
h) creation and last access time was not displayed for archived folders
if folder records were stored in archive after folder contents;
i) "Skip encrypted archives" option in "Convert archives" command
did not work for 7-Zip archives with headers encryption.

Changes for v5.60 - v5.61

"Delete archive" extraction option deletes all volumes even if user started extraction from non-first RAR volume, but first volume is present and all files are unpacked successfully. In such case previous versions ignored "Delete archive" even if WinRAR was able to locate the first volume and process the volume set from beginning.
Compression ratio bar is not displayed on "Archive" page of Explorer file properties for archives with encrypted file names. WinRAR cannot reliably calculate it for such archives without a password and previously it just displayed 0% here.
Bugs fixed:
WinRAR displayed "The specified password is incorrect" message infinitely when attempting to open RAR5 archive with encrypted file names if wrong global password was set with Ctrl+P;
memory management bug in the password dialog could lead to access to already freed memory followed by crash. This issue may be also associated with security risks;
fixed crashes in corrupt RAR, ACE and LZH archives. This issue may be also associated with security risks;
while starting, WinRAR could cause a brief flickering in menu bars of few other applications;
WinRAR "Find" command matched "String to find" against all archived files ignoring "File names to find" mask when searching in CAB archives;
SFX module "License" command did not set a title of license window;
if "Start-up folder" in WinRAR settings included the trailing backslash, WinRAR ignored first "Up one level" command

Changes for v5.31 - v5.40

1. "Name encoding" submenu in "Options" menu allows to select
encoding for archived file names. This selection affects archive
browsing and extraction commands. You can use Ctrl+E keyboard
shortcut to access this menu quickly.
It can be useful when unpacking an archive without Unicode file names.
For example, unpacking a zip file with Chinese archived names
in Windows with Russian specified as a language for non-Unicode
programs.
2. If RAR recovery volumes (.rev files) are present in the same folder
as usual RAR volumes, archive test command verifies .rev contents
after completing testing .rar files.
If you wish to test only .rev files without checking .rar volumes,
you can select .rev files in WinRAR file list and apply "Test"
only to them or run:
rar t arcname.part1.rev
in the command line.
3. While NTFS file system permits file names with trailing spaces
and dots, a lot of Windows programs fail to process such names
correctly. If "Allow potentially incompatible names" option
in "Advanced" page of extraction dialog is turned off, WinRAR removes
trailing spaces and dots, if any, from file names when extracting.
This option is turned off by default.
Command line RAR also removes trailing spaces and dots when extracting
unless -oni switch is specified.
4. Previously "Synchronize archive contents" update mode
(-as command line switch) aborted if some of archiving folders
could not be read. Now WinRAR continues performing the operation
and preserves archived files matching unreadable folders.
5. WinRAR Shift+Del delete command can be used to delete folders
containing non-standard file names with trailing spaces and dots.
Usual delete to Recycle Bin also as Shift+Del in previous WinRAR
versions cannot delete such folders.
Unlike Del command, Shift+Del removes files permanently,
they are not moved to Recycle Bin. No additional prompts are issued
for files with read-only and system attributes.
6. You can drag folders from folder tree panel and drop them to
other programs or Desktop to copy or unpack them. Drag the archive
icon in tree panel root to unpack the entire archive.
7. "New folder" button in extraction dialog proposes a new folder name
based on archive name instead of generic "New Folder".
8. Command line RAR version information:
a) if -iver switch is specified, RAR displays the version number
and quits. You can run just "RAR -iver";
b) "x86" or "x64" is displayed in Windows RAR version information
both for -iver and in the copyright title for other commands.
9. If -p switch is used without optional parameter,
a password can be also set with file redirection or pipe.
For example: rar -p myarc.rar myfiles < psw.txt
10. Command line RAR treats 'arcname.partN' as 'arcname.partN.rar'
if 'arcname.partN' does not exist and 'arcname.part#.rar' exists.
For example, it is allowed to run:
RAR x arcname.part01
to start extraction from arcname.part01.rar
11. Improvements in 7z archives support:
a) "Solid" status is correctly detected and reported for 7z archives
in WinRAR "Info" command;
b) dictionary size is displayed for LZMA and LZMA2 7z archives
in WinRAR "Info" command;
c) unknown packed size for files inside of 7z solid block is denoted
as '?' instead of '0' when browsing the archive contents in WinRAR.
12. Maximum comment length for RAR archives is increased from 64 to 256 KB.
Since SFX script commands are stored in archive comment,
it allows a longer main and license text in SFX archives.
13. Size of default WinRAR viewer font is scaled up properly
in Windows high DPI mode.
14. Switch -scul can be used to process big endian UTF-16 list files
as well, provided that they have a correct byte order mark.
Previously it allowed only little endian file lists.
15. Minimum supported Windows version is Windows XP SP3 now.
WinRAR will not run in Windows XP without service packs.
16. "Settings/File list/Allow all uppercase names" option is removed.
This option was intended to simplify transition from MS DOS to
Windows and is not needed anymore.
17. Bugs fixed:
a) WinRAR 5.31 x64 "Compress and email" command did not work
with Microsoft Outlook x64;
b) if WinRAR 5.31 version for one of right to left languages
was installed in Windows with English or other not right to
left system language, WinRAR could change Windows Explorer
layout to right to left;
c) if archive was stored in a folder without "Write" permission
and if archive contents was extracted with drag and drop to
a writable folder, WinRAR issued an unnecessary privileges
elevation prompt.

Changes for v5.30 - v5.31

1. Following issues are corrected in Windows high DPI mode:
a) if text size in Windows settings was set to 150% or larger, the font size in WinRAR help was not increased accordingly, resulting in too small text;
b) default columns width in WinRAR file list was less than expected for 125% or larger Windows text setting.
2. Interface improvements for right to left languages:
a) proper text alignment in simple WinRAR prompts, such as confirmations to delete archived files or to clear the log file;
b) "OK", "Cancel", "Help" buttons in multi-page dialogs, such as archiving and extraction options or WinRAR settings, are aligned correctly and translated to default Windows display language.
3. Bugs fixed:
a) WinRAR SFX module could load DLL libraries from its own executable folder as a result of calling some Windows API functions.
It could lead to security threat if DLL files with malicious code were stored in the same folder as SFX archive. Now SFX module takes additional steps to prevent such situation in Windows Vista and newer.
Be aware that users without latest Windows security patches installed also as Windows XP users still can be affected, so they must be especially careful to run SFX archive from a folder without suspicious DLL files;
b) WinRAR 5.30 failed to run .lnk files from file list.

Changes for v5.21 Beta 2 - v5.21

1. "Drag and drop context menu" options in "Settings/Integration/ Context menu items" dialog allow to disable WinRAR archiving and extraction commands in context menu displayed after dragging and dropping files with right mouse button.
2. If winrar.ini file is present in the same folder as WinRAR installer, winrar.ini will be copied to WinRAR program folder after completing installation.
3. While previous versions could produce RAR5 volumes of slightly smaller than requested size sometimes, such situation is less likely now. In most cases volume size equals to specified by user.
4. Now by default WinRAR skips symbolic links with absolute paths in link target when extracting. You can enable creating such links with "Allow absolute paths in symbolic links" option on "Advanced" page of extraction dialog or with -ola command line switch.
Such links pointing to folders outside of extraction destination folder can present a security risk. Enable their extraction only if you are sure that archive contents is safe, such as your own backup.
5. Bugs fixed:
a) WinRAR 5.20 issued unnecessary user account control (UAC) prompt, when running an executable from archive stored in UAC protected folder. Since nothing is extracted to folder containing an archive in such case, UAC prompt is not needed;
b) WinRAR could overwrite files with read-only attribute only when unpacking RAR and ZIP archive formats. Now it is also implemented for other archive formats supported by WinRAR;
c) "Elapsed time" and "Time left" were displayed incorrectly when applying "Convert" command to multiple archives and enabling "Add recovery record" option.

Changes for v5.21 Beta 1 - v5.21 Beta 2

1. Now by default WinRAR skips symbolic links with absolute paths in link target when extracting. You can enable creating such links with "Allow absolute paths in symbolic links" option on "Advanced" page of extraction dialog or with -ola command line switch.
Such links pointing to folders outside of extraction destination folder can present a security risk. Enable their extraction only if you are sure that archive contents is safe, such as your own backup.
2. Bugs fixed:
a) if several files from different folders were selected and extracted using "Flat folders view" file list mode and "Extract relative paths" extraction option, WinRAR could truncate paths of some of these files. It did not happen if entire file list contents or a single file was selected.

Changes for v5.20 - v5.21 Beta 1

1. "Drag and drop context menu" options in "Settings/Integration/ Context menu items" dialog allow to disable WinRAR archiving and extraction commands in context menu displayed after dragging and dropping files with right mouse button.
2. If winrar.ini file is present in the same folder as WinRAR installer, winrar.ini will be copied to WinRAR program folder after completing installation.
3. While previous versions could produce RAR5 volumes of slightly smaller than requested size sometimes, such situation is less likely now. In most cases volume size equals to specified by user.
4. Bugs fixed:
a) WinRAR 5.20 issued unnecessary user account control (UAC) prompt, when running an executable from archive stored in UAC protected folder. Since nothing is extracted to folder containing an archive in such case, UAC prompt is not needed;
b) WinRAR could overwrite files with read-only attribute only when unpacking RAR and ZIP archive formats. Now it is also implemented for other archive formats supported by WinRAR;
c) "Elapsed time" and "Time left" were displayed incorrectly when applying "Convert" command to multiple archives and enabling "Add recovery record" option.

Changes for v5.20 Beta 4 - v5.20

1. If Windows User Account Control prevents extracting or archiving commands to create files in system protected folders, WinRAR attempts to start its another copy with administrator privileges to complete the operation. It is necessary to confirm privileges elevation in response to User Account Control prompt to allow such second WinRAR copy to run.
2. You can drag files in Explorer with right mouse button, drop them to some folder and select WinRAR archiving commands in context menu to create an archive with these files in the destination folder.
3. It is possible to use WinRAR.ini file instead of Registry to store WinRAR settings. You may prefer such approach if you plan to install WinRAR to removable media, such as USB flash drive, and then run it on different computers.
See "WinRAR.ini file" topic in "Configuration settings" chapter of WinRAR help for details.
4. Added extraction support for ZIP and ZIPX archives using XZ compression algorithm.
5. If ZIP or ZIPX archive contains any compression algorithms except usual "Store" or "Deflate", algorithm names are displayed in "Version to extract" field of archive information dialog. Algorithms with names unknown to WinRAR will be assigned "m" name, where "num" is a compression algorithm numeric identifier.
6. "Open with WinRAR" command is available in Windows context menus for archive formats supported by WinRAR. It can be turned off with "Open with WinRAR (for usual archives)" option in WinRAR "Settings/Integration/Context menu items..." dialog.
7. Command line RAR can read the default set of switches from rar.ini file stored in RAR program folder. Previously it was possible to define only the same set of switches for all RAR command with "switches=" string. Now rar.ini also allows to specify separate switch sets for individual RAR commands using the following syntax:
switches_=
For example:
switches_a=-m5 -s
switches_x=-o+
8. Command "ch" supports switches -tl, -cu, -cl also for ZIP archives. Previously "ch" allowed these switches only for RAR archive format.
9. For archive formats lacking file time information, such as .bz2, .xz and .Z, WinRAR sets container archive modification time to extracted files. It does not apply to tar.bz2, tar.xz and tar.Z, which use file time stored in tar headers.
10. "Keep broken files" extraction option is supported for bzip2 archives.
11. WinRAR icon in Windows context menus is scaled up correctly in high DPI screen modes such as 150% or 200% of normal text size.
12. It is possible to disable WinRAR "Benchmark" command with "Benchmark" variable of HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\WinRAR\Policy Registry key. In multi-user environment "Benchmark" command might abuse shared computational resources. See "Registry variables" topic in "Configuration settings" chapter of WinRAR help for more details.
13. Additionally to "sfxcmd" variable containing the entire command line, SFX module sets "sfxpar" variable containing command line parameters only, without leading SFX module name. These variables are set before starting a program specified in "Setup" command.
14. File overwrite prompt in console RAR displays the size and modification time for existing and new files.
15. When archiving from stdin with -si switch, RAR sets the current system time to modification time of archived file. Previous version did not set this time at all.
16. It is possible to use -si and -v switches together. Previous versions did not allow to create volumes when archiving from stdin.
17. Warning is issued when starting unpacking 4 GB or larger file from RAR or ZIP archive to FAT32 patition, so user may cancel the operation. FAT32 does not support files of such size.
Also this warning is issued when starting to create RAR archive with "Store" (-m0) method if estimated archive size is 4 GB or more.
18. "Select all" button in "Settings/Integration" dialog is renamed to "Toggle all". Now it deselects archive formats if all they are already selected.
19. "Delete archive" extraction option correctly removes all .zip and .7z volumes. Previously it removed only the first volume in the set for these archive formats.

Changes for v5.20 Beta 3 - v5.20 Beta 4

1. Bugs fixed:
a) "Extract each archive to separate folder" context menu command did not work properly and extracted all files to same folder if destination folder was protected with user account control (UAC).

Changes for v5.20 Beta 2 - v5.20 Beta 3

Bugs fixed:
"Extract relative paths" option was ignored and full pathname was created when extracting a file from ZIP archive to a folder protected with user account control (UAC);
if encrypted archived file was opened in external editor, modified and saved, previous beta stored this file back to archive without encryption.

Changes for v5.20 Beta 1 - v5.20 Beta 2

"Create WinRAR.ini file" command in "Export/Import" submenu of "Options" menu creates a new WinRAR.ini file and copies WinRAR settings from Registry to this file.
Beta 1 documentation described "Global" keys in WinRAR.ini as Global/AppData, Global/Integration, Global/SaveSettings, when actually they are Global\AppData, Global\Integration, Global\SaveSettings (backslash instead of forward slash). Now WinRAR creates these keys in WinRAR.ini automatically if they do not already exist.
Compression settings in "Convert archives" dialog were not saved after pressing "Save" button.
First beta proposed "name.ext.ext.rar" instead of expected "name.ext.rar" archive name, when archiving "name.ext" folder.

Changes for v5.11 - v5.20 Beta 1

1. If Windows User Account Control prevents extracting or archiving commands to create files in system protected folders, WinRAR attempts to start its another copy with administrator privileges to complete the operation. It is necessary to confirm privileges elevation in response to User Account Control prompt to allow such second WinRAR copy to run.
2. You can drag files in Explorer with right mouse button, drop them to some folder and select WinRAR archiving commands in context menu to create an archive with these files in the destination folder.
3. It is possible to use WinRAR.ini file instead of Registry to store WinRAR settings. You may prefer such approach if you plan to install WinRAR to removable media, such as USB flash drive, and then run it on different computers.
See "WinRAR.ini file" topic in "Configuration settings" chapter of WinRAR help for details.
4. Added extraction support for ZIP and ZIPX archives using XZ compression algorithm.
5. If ZIP or ZIPX archive contains any compression algorithms except usual "Store" or "Deflate", algorithm names are displayed in "Version to extract" field of archive information dialog. Algorithms with names unknown to WinRAR will be assigned "m" name, where "num" is a compression algorithm numeric identifier.
6. "Open with WinRAR" command is available in Windows context menus for archive formats supported by WinRAR. It can be turned off with "Open with WinRAR (for usual archives)" option in WinRAR "Settings/Integration/Context menu items..." dialog.
7. Command line RAR can read the default set of switches from rar.ini file stored in RAR program folder. Previously it was possible to define only the same set of switches for all RAR command with "switches=" string. Now rar.ini also allows to specify separate switch sets for individual RAR commands using the following syntax:
switches_=
For example:
switches_a=-m5 -s
switches_x=-o+
8. Command "ch" supports switches -tl, -cu, -cl also for ZIP archives. Previously "ch" allowed these switches only for RAR archive format.
9. For archive formats lacking file time information, such as .bz2, .xz and .Z, WinRAR sets container archive modification time to extracted files. It does not apply to tar.bz2, tar.xz and tar.Z, which use file time stored in tar headers.
10. "Keep broken files" extraction option is supported for bzip2 archives.
11. WinRAR icon in Windows context menus is scaled up correctly in high DPI screen modes such as 150% or 200% of normal text size.
12. It is possible to disable WinRAR "Benchmark" command with "Benchmark" variable of HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\WinRAR\Policy Registry key. In multi-user environment "Benchmark" command might abuse shared computational resources. See "Registry variables" topic in "Configuration settings" chapter of WinRAR help for more details.
13. Additionally to "sfxcmd" variable containing the entire command line, SFX module sets "sfxpar" variable containing command line parameters only, without leading SFX module name. These variables are set before starting a program specified in "Setup" command.
14. File overwrite prompt in console RAR displays the size and modification time for existing and new files.
15. When archiving from stdin with -si switch, RAR sets the current system time to modification time of archived file. Previous version did not set this time at all.
16. It is possible to use -si and -v switches together. Previous versions did not allow to create volumes when archiving from stdin.
17. Warning is issued when starting unpacking 4 GB or larger file from RAR or ZIP archive to FAT32 patition, so user may cancel the operation. FAT32 does not support files of such size.
Also this warning is issued when starting to create RAR archive with "Store" (-m0) method if estimated archive size is 4 GB or more.
18. "Select all" button in "Settings/Integration" dialog is renamed to "Toggle all". Now it deselects archive formats if all they are already selected.
19. "Delete archive" extraction option correctly removes all .zip and .7z volumes. Previously it removed only the first volume in the set for these archive formats.

Changes for v5.10 - v5.11

1. WinRAR can unpack TAR archives containing folders with pax extended headers. Previous versions failed to unpack them.
2. "Keep broken files" extraction option is supported for 7-Zip archives.
3. Bugs fixed:
a) WinRAR 5.10 did not set "hidden", "read-only" and "system" file attributes when unpacking ZIP archives;
b) WinRAR 5.10 failed to update self-extracting RAR archives containing nested ZIP archives stored without compression;
c) ZIP archive created with "Do not store paths" option included unnecessary empty name records for folders;
d) archived files could have 1 hour modification time error in Windows XP;
e) deleting a file in RAR5 solid archive containing files stored with -ver switch caused such files to lose version information;
f) black rectangles were displayed instead of toolbar buttons in 16- and 24- bit screen color modes and Windows custom text size larger than 100%.

Changes for v5.10 - v5.11 Beta 1

1. WinRAR can unpack TAR archives containing folders with pax extended headers. Previous versions failed to unpack them.
2. "Keep broken files" extraction option is supported for 7-Zip archives.
3. Bugs fixed:
a) WinRAR 5.10 did not set "hidden", "read-only" and "system" file attributes when unpacking ZIP archives;
b) WinRAR 5.10 failed to update self-extracting RAR archives containing nested ZIP archives stored without compression;
c) ZIP archive created with "Do not store paths" option included unnecessary empty name records for folders;
d) archived files could have 1 hour modification time error in Windows XP;
e) deleting a file in RAR5 solid archive containing files stored with -ver switch caused such files to lose version information;
f) black rectangles were displayed instead of toolbar buttons in 16- and 24- bit screen color modes and Windows custom text size larger than 100%.

Changes for v5.10 Beta 4 - v5.10

Added extraction support for ZIP and ZIPX archives using BZIP2, LZMA and PPMd compression.
Added extraction support for 7z split archives (.7z.001, .7z.002, ...).
Added support for AES-NI CPU instructions allowing to improve RAR encryption and decryption performance.
Default theme images are scaled up with better quality in high DPI display mode.
Environment variables, such as %temp%, can be used in "Files to add" field of archiving dialog.
Switch -ai can be used when creating RAR archive, so predefined values, typical for file and folder, are stored instead of actual attributes.

Changes for v5.10 Beta 3 - v5.10 Beta 4

Changes for v5.10 Beta 2 - v5.10 Beta 3

1. More efficient implementation of "Keep broken files" extraction option (-kb switch in command line mode). Now it allows to recover more data from file split between RAR volumes if next volume is missing.
2. Bugs fixed:
a) "Create recovery volumes" command on "Options" page of archive information dialog was inaccessible if "Merge volume contents" option was enabled in WinRAR settings;
b) if wrong password was entered for RAR archive with encrypted file names, previous beta applied such wrong password automatically, when opening the same archive again.

Changes for v5.10 Beta 1 - v5.10 Beta 2

Bugs fixed:
a) when processing nested archives, WinRAR could attempt to open inner archive as self-extracting instead of opening an outer archive. It happened if inner archive was stored without compression and outer archive name had non-standard extension;
b) Unix RAR could not decompress hard links stored by WinRAR if link source name included path separator characters.

Changes for v5.01 - v5.10 Beta 1

Added extraction support for ZIP and ZIPX archives using BZIP2, LZMA and PPMd compression.
Added extraction support for 7z split archives (.7z.001, .7z.002, ...).
Added support for AES-NI CPU instructions allowing to improve RAR encryption and decryption performance.
Default theme images are scaled up with better quality in high DPI display mode.
Environment variables, such as %temp%, can be used in "Files to add" field of archiving dialog.
Switch -ai can be used when creating RAR archive, so predefined values, typical for file and folder, are stored instead of actual attributes. Previously this switch could be used only when extracting.

Changes for v5.00 - v5.01

1. RAR 5.0 archives can include an optional quick open information controlled with -qo[-|+] switch or "Quick open information" options group in archiving dialog. It allows to open the archive contents in WinRAR faster.
This version provides better update performance for archives containing both quick open information and service records, such as NTFS file security. Also default parameters of quick open information are optimized to achieve faster open time for such archives.
2. Bugs fixed:
a) "Find" command could fail when searching text string in .7z archives;
b) when opening RAR 5.0 archive with encrypted file names stored in another such archive, WinRAR could issue an erroneous message that password is incorrect. It happened only if passwords to inner and outer archives were different. It did not affect extraction, all files could be unpacked regardless of this message;
c) option "Use for all archives" in password dialog did not suppress additional password requests for RAR 5.0 archives with encrypted file names;
d) WinRAR address bar did not process correctly environment variable based paths, such as %temp%;
e) storing NTFS file security and alternate data streams did not work for file pathnames longer than 260 characters;
f) "Test" command could erroneously report damaged data in valid recovery record if only a part of files in RAR 5.0 archive was tested. It did not happen if entire archive contents was tested;
g) "Test" command erroneously reported errors when verifying RAR 4.x Unix symbolic links;
h) WinRAR "View" command did not work for files inside of BZIP2 archives;
i) if "High precision modification time" option in archiving dialog was turned off, WinRAR did not store the modification time at all instead of storing a lower precision time;
j) destination paths containing .\ or ..\ component did not work when extracting non-RAR archives in WinRAR command line mode;
k) WinRAR failed to unpack multivolume CAB archives.

Changes for v5.00 - v5.01 Beta 1

1. RAR 5.0 archives can include an optional quick open information controlled with -qo[-|+] switch or "Quick open information" options group in archiving dialog. It allows to open the archive contents in WinRAR faster.
This version provides better update peformance for archives containing both quick open information and service records, such as NTFS file security. Also default parameters of quick open information are optimized to achieve faster open time for such archives.
2. Bugs fixed:
a) "Find" command could fail when searching text string in .7z archives;
b) when opening RAR 5.0 archive with encrypted file names stored in another such archive, WinRAR could issue an erroneous message that password is incorrect. It happened only if passwords to inner and outer archives were different. It did not affect extraction, all files could be unpacked regardless of this message;
c) option "Use for all archives" in password dialog did not suppress additional password requests for RAR 5.0 archives with encrypted file names;
d) WinRAR address bar did not process correctly environment variable based paths, such as %temp%;
e) storing NTFS file security and alternate data streams did not work for file pathnames longer than 260 characters;
f) "Test" command could erroneously report damaged data in valid recovery record if only a part of files in RAR 5.0 archive was tested. It did not happen if entire archive contents was tested;
g) "Test" command erroneously reported errors when verifying RAR 4.x Unix symbolic links;
h) WinRAR "View" command did not work for files inside of BZIP2 archives;
i) if "High precision modification time" option in archiving dialog was turned off, WinRAR did not store the modification time at all instead of storing a lower precision time;
j) destination paths containing .\ or ..\ component did not work when extracting non-RAR archives in WinRAR command line mode;
k) WinRAR failed to unpack multivolume CAB archives.

Changes for v4.20 - v5.00

1. New RAR 5.0 archiving format. You can use "RAR 5.0" option in archiving dialog or -ma command line switch to create RAR 5.0 archives.
Older software including older WinRAR versions is not able to decompress RAR 5.0 archives, so if you plan to send an archive to other people, it is necessary to take the compatibility issue into consideration. You can select "RAR" instead of "RAR5" option in archiving dialog to create RAR 4.x archives compatible with previous WinRAR versions.
2. Changes in RAR 5.0 compression algorithm:
a) maximum compression dictionary size is increased up to 1 GB in 64 bit WinRAR. 32 bit WinRAR 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;
b) 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 "Dictionary size" archiving dialog option or -md switch to change this value;
c) -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;
d) 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;
e) 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.
3. Changes in RAR 5.0 archive format:
a) file times are stored as Coordinated Universal Time (UTC) instead of former local time, making file exchange among several time zones more straightforward;
b) file names and archive comments use UTF-8 encoding.
4. 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.
5. "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.
6. Changes in RAR 5.0 encryption algorithm:
a) encryption algorithm is changed from AES-128 to AES-256 in CBC mode. Key derivation function is based on PBKDF2 using HMAC-SHA256;
b) special password verification value allows to detect most of wrong passwords without necessity to unpack the entire file;
c) 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.
7. RAR 5.0 archives allow to utilize 256 bit length BLAKE2sp hash ( https://blake2.net ) instead of 32 bit CRC32 as a file checksum. Enable "Use BLAKE2 file checksum" option in "Options" page of archiving dialog or specify -htb command line switch to use BLAKE2 checksums.
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.
8. Features removed:
a) 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 WinRAR to safely skip external data like digital signatures appended to archive;
c) 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.
9. "Set password" command and "Dictionary size" option are moved to "General" page of archiving dialog.
10. You can use "Save symbolic links as links" option on "Advanced" page of archiving dialog to save and restore NTFS symbolic links and reparse points as links, so their contents is not archived. Command line equivalent of this option is -ol switch.
Similar option for NTFS hard links is "Save hard links as links". Its command line equivalent is -oh switch.
Both options are available only for RAR 5.0 archive format.
11. Added extraction only support for XZ archive format.
12. Changes in recovery volume processing in RAR 5.0 archive format:
a) maximum number of RAR+REV volumes in RAR 5.0 format is 65535 instead of 255;
b) recovery volume operations are faster than in RAR 4.x;
c) 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.
13. Maximum path length for files in RAR and ZIP archives is increased up to 2048 characters.
14. 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.
15. '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.
16. Now the default charset for filelists in commands like 'rar a arcname @filelist' is ANSI for both WinRAR and console RAR. In previous versions it was ANSI for WinRAR and OEM for console RAR. You can use -scl switch to override this default.
17. Internal WinRAR viewer can detect and display files in UTF-8 and UTF-16 little endian encodings.
18. UTF-16 little endian encoding is used in RAR and WinRAR log file rar.log, so Unicode file names are stored in the log correctly. WinRAR automatically truncates the old rar.log file in non-Unicode format to avoid mixing different encoding in the same log file. In case of console RAR you need to delete the old rar.log manually, otherwide RAR will append UTF-16 messages to existing rar.log.
You can use -scg switch to change the default log file encoding, such as -scag for ANSI encoding.
19. Command line 'r' (repair) command can include an optional destpath\ parameter defining the destination folder for repaired archive: rar r archive.rar destpath\

Changes for v5.00 Beta 7 - v5.00 Beta 8

1. WinRAR treats files with .txz extension as .tar.xz archives.
2. If 7-Zip archive extraction is cancelled, WinRAR deletes the incompletely extracted file. Previous versions did not delete it.
3. Bugs fixed:
a) solid archive updating was aborted for archives contaning BLAKE2 checksums;
b) folder tree panel did not allow to go to the archive root folder;
c) "Reuse existing window" option did not work if first WinRAR copy was browsing an archive and second WinRAR copy attempted to open another archive in another folder;
d) "Advanced compression parameters" dialog settings format in Registry was incompatible with WinRAR 4.20.

Changes for v5.00 Beta 6 - v5.00 Beta 7

Bugs fixed:
a) when processing a command like:
WinRAR.exe a -sfxmymodule.sfx arcname.exe
WinRAR ignored the optional parameter of -sfx switch and used default.sfx module. Console RAR.exe did not have this bug;
b) WinRAR did not create the folder structure necessary to store unpacked hard links. So if folder containing a hard link did not exist yet, hard link extraction failed;
c) "rn" command displayed wrong file names for processed files. Files were renamed properly, only the screen output was incorrect;
d) when extracting ACE archive, WinRAR could create empty folders contained in such archive in a wrong destination folder.

Changes for v5.00 Beta 5 - v5.00 Beta 6

1. Fixed a bug in recovery record generation in RAR 5.0 archive format.
Under certain circumstances previous beta versions could produce wrong recovery record data, inefficient to repair a corrupt archive. Such invalid recovery record can be identified with "Test" command, which issues "Recovery record is corrupt" warning for it.

Changes for v5.00 Beta 4 - v5.00 Beta 5

Previous beta failed to decompress RAR archives contained both encrypted and unencrypted files. Archives containing only encrypted or only unencrypted files were unpacked correctly.
By default, RAR 5.0 log files produced with -ilog switch use UTF-16 little endian encoding. Now it can be changed with -scg switch, such as -scag for ANSI encoding.

Changes for v5.00 Beta 3 - v5.00 Beta 4

If archiving operation cannot allocate memory required for compression dictionary, it automatically reduces the dictionary size.
Decompression algorithm can store the dictionary in several memory blocks. It helps to unpack an archive on systems with high level of memory heap fragmentation, when no single memory block is large enough to fit the entire compression dictionary.

Changes for v5.00 beta 2 - v5.00 Beta 3

1. Fixed XZ archive support, which did not work in beta 2.
2. "Convert" command did not allow to use compression dictionaries exceeding 4 MB.
3. If both encryption password and archive comment were specified when creating RAR archive, archive comment was not added.
4. "View as Unicode (UTF-8)" command in internal viewer did not work, so UTF-8 files were displayed correctly only if their encoding was detected by viewer automatically.
5. Maximum compression dictionary size when running in Windows XP x86 is reduced to 128 MB. WinRAR cannot allocate enough memory to create archives with 256 MB dictionary in Windows XP x86.
6. Corrections in relative path processing, such as "..\arcname.rar" name in archiving dialog or "WinRAR foldername" in the command line.

Changes for v4.20 - v5.00 beta 2

When adding an incompressible file to non-solid RAR archive, beta 1 could duplicate the first megabyte of archived file, resulting in damaged file.
"Add to archive..." context menu command could place a created archive to a wrong folder.

Changes for v4.11 - v4.20

1. Changes in RAR compression:
a) 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.
b) 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;
c) 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;
d) "Fastest" (-m1) compression mode also supports several processor cores now. In 4.11 it could use only a single processor core.
2. 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.
3. Changes in ZIP compression:
a) 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;
b) memory use for ZIP compression is increased to about 15 MB.
4. 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.
5. Now the allowed value for -mt switch is 1 - 32, not 0 - 16 as before.
6. "Find files" command can search data in 7-Zip archives. Previously "Find files" did not support .7z archive format.
7. Windows 2000 is not supported by WinRAR and WinRAR self-extracting modules anymore.
8. "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.

Changes for v4.20 Beta 2 - v4.20 Beta 3

1. "Estimate" function in WinRAR "Info" command is adjusted to faster WinRAR 4.20 compression when calculating the expected compression time.
2. GUI SFX module -sp switch passes parameters to setup application only if no other parameters were specified in "Setup" command in SFX script. So "Setup" command has a higher priority than -sp.
Regardless of -sp presence, setup application can read the full SFX command line from sfxcmd environment variable.
3. "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.

Changes for v4.20 Beta 1 - v4.20 Beta 2

RAR compression speed is further improved in multi-core environment compared with beta 1.

Changes for v4.11 - v4.20 Beta 1

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.

Changes for v4.11 - v4.20 Beta 1

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.

Changes for v4.10 - v4.11

1. Bugs fixed:
a) WinRAR did not store NTFS "Compressed" attribute, when creating RAR archives;
b) WinRAR crashed in command line mode if @filelist parameter was present and 'filelist' did not exist. This bug affected only WinRAR.exe, not RAR.exe;
c) if -x*\somefolder\* exclusion mask was specified when archiving and if name of current folder contained 'somefolder', WinRAR excluded all files and stopped creating an archive;
d) GUI self-extracting archives did not work in Windows Preinstallation Environment (Windows PE).

Changes for v4.01 - v4.10

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:
a) -ag can be used with all RAR and WinRAR commands, not just with archiving only;
b) '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;
c) '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:
a) 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;
b) 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.
Volume size in archiving and wizard dialogs can be specified as a decimal fraction. Decimal mark is defined by Windows regional settings.
-v command line switch also allows decimal fractions. In command line mode the dot (.) is always used as the decimal mark. For example, -v1.5g switch means 1.5 gigabytes.

Changes for v4.01 - v4.10 Beta 1

1. 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. 2. 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.
3. 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.
4. 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.
5. "Synchronize archive contents" option and -as command line switch are supported in ZIP format.
6. Modifications of switch -ag behavior:
a) -ag can be used with all RAR and WinRAR commands, not just with archiving only;
b) '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;
c) '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.
7. 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.
8. 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.
9. 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.
10. 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.
11. 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.
12. Changes in "Convert archives" command:
a) 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;
b) 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.
13. 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.
14. New -@[+] switch allows to process all parameters starting from '@' character either as file names (-@) or as file lists (-@+).
15. "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.
16. "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.
17. 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.

Changes for v4.01 Beta 1 - v4.01

1. Added support for file sizes stored in binary format in TAR archives. Some TAR archives use the binary size format instead of octal for files larger than 8 GB.
2. Bugs fixed:
a) "Repair" command failed to properly reconstruct structure of RAR archives, which contained at least one file with packed size exceeding 4 GB. This bug did not affect the recovery record based repair. It happened only if recovery record was not found and WinRAR performed reconstruction of archive structure;
b) even if "Do not extract paths" option in "Advanced" part of extraction dialog was set as the default, WinRAR still unpacked file paths if called from Explorer context menu;
c) after entering a wrong password for encrypted ZIP archive, sometimes WinRAR ignored subsequent attempts to enter a valid password;
d) "Wizard" command did not allow to create self-extracting and multivolume archives, when compressing a single folder or a file without extension;
e) "Import settings from file" command did not restore multiline comments in WinRAR compression profiles;
f) when converting RAR volumes having name1.name2.part#.rar name format, "Convert archives" command erroneously removed ".name2" name part. So resulting archive had name1.rar file name instead of expected name1.name2.rar;
g) RAR could crash when creating a new archive with -agNNN switch if archive number in generated name was 110 or larger;
h) WinRAR failed to display non-English file names in 7-Zip archives properly if they used a non-default code page. It was the display only problem, such names were unpacked correctly.

Changes for v4.00 - v4.01 Beta 1

Added support for file sizes stored in binary format in TAR archives. Some TAR archives use the binary size format instead of octal for files larger than 8 GB.
Bugs fixed:
"Repair" command failed to properly reconstruct structure of RAR archives, which contained at least one file with packed size exceeding 4 GB.
This bug did not affect the recovery record based repair. It happened only if recovery record was not found and WinRAR performed reconstruction of archive structure;
even if "Do not extract paths" option in "Advanced" part of extraction dialog was set as the default, WinRAR still unpacked file paths if called from Explorer context menu;
after entering a wrong password for encrypted ZIP archive, sometimes WinRAR ignored subsequent attempts to enter a valid password;
"Wizard" command did not allow to create self-extracting and multivolume archives, when compressing a single folder or a file without extension;
"Import settings from file" command did not restore multiline comments in WinRAR compression profiles;
when converting RAR volumes having name1.name2.part#.rar name format, "Convert archives" command erroneously removed ".name2" name part. So resulting archive had name1.rar file name instead of expected name1.name2.rar;
RAR could crash when creating a new archive with -agNNN switch if archive number in generated name was 110 or larger.

Changes for v3.93 - v4.00

1. 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.
2. Changes in ISO support:
a) UDF support is upgraded to UDF 2.50 revision. It makes possible to unpack most of Blu-ray ISO files;
b) when browsing UDF ISO file, UDF revision number is displayed after the "UDF" format name in WinRAR address bar and in archive information dialog;
c) WinRAR sets the folder modification date when unpacking folders stored in UDF and ISO9660 files.
3. Changes in password dialog:
a) WinRAR uses the same format of password dialog both when archiving and extracting, so "Show password" option is available also when extracting;
b) "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;
c) "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;
d) 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.
4. 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.
5. Numerous Unicode support improvements allow to process non-English file names more smoothly. These improvements include:
a) 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;
b) correctly displayed Unicode names in WinRAR items in Explorer context menus;
c) Unicode support in .lng files, making WinRAR localization possible for Unicode only languages.
6. 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\
7. 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.
8. 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 you need to run WinRAR on older Windows, you can download previous WinRAR versions from ftp://ftp.rarlab.com/rar
9. 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 links 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.
10. Recovery volume processing involves less disk seek operations resulting in higher performance.
11. You can select Windows 7 library in tree panel in extraction dialog and WinRAR will use its default save location as the destination path.
12. "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.
13. 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.
14. 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.
15. WinRAR displays the current percent above the operation progress bar when repairing an archive containing the recovery record and when processing recovery volumes.
16. 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.
17. 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.
18. 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.
19. 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.
20. File name area in file overwrite dialog occupies several lines now. It makes possible to display much longer names.
21. 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.
22. 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.
23. "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.
24. Bugs fixed:
a) renaming a file in archive could also rename all other files with the same name in other folders of the same archive;
b) previous versions displayed the wrong total packed size in "Info" command for multivolume CAB archives;
c) 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.

Changes for v4.00 Beta 6 - v4.00 Beta 7

1. Bugs fixed:
a) "Prediction order", "Memory to use" and "Channels" fields in "Advanced compression parameters" dialog, "Lowest allowed ratio" in archive conversion dialog, "recovery volumes" field in archiving dialog did not provide enough space to enter maximum values allowed for these parameters. Now the width of these controls is increased.

Changes for v4.00 Beta 5 - v4.00 Beta 6

1. Bugs fixed:
a) "Use for all archives" option in the password dialog did not work for several 7-Zip archives with encrypted file names;
b) "Rename" command could fail to rename archived folders with non-English names in RAR archives created by old WinRAR versions;
c) when WinRAR was running in the background, its tray icon messages were truncated if longer than 63 characters.

Changes for v4.00 Beta 4 - v4.00 Beta 5

1. Now WinRAR command line mode -ibck switch is applicable to most of archive processing operations, not just archiving and extracting.
2. Default compression profile options do not modify extraction behavior anymore and "Background archiving" option does not work for extraction. So we added the separate "Background extraction" option in "Advanced" part of extraction dialog. You can save the default state of this option with "Save settings" button in "General" part of extraction dialog, just like for other extraction options.
3. Switch -cfg- disables use of "Default folder for archives" from WinRAR settings in WinRAR command line mode. Also it forces WinRAR to ignore "Select for archives" fields in "Organize passwords" dialog.
4. "Mode..." button in the 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.
5. Double clicking on a password record in "Organize passwords" dialog works like "Edit" button, opening "Password information" dialog. Previous beta versions ignored the double click in "Organize passwords".
6. Bugs fixed:
a) "a" and "s" commands with -iicon and -iimg switches did not remove temporary files in WinRAR temporary folder after completion;
b) "Enable autocomplete" option in "Organize passwords" dialog did not allow to disable the autocomplete feature in Windows XP.

Changes for v4.0 Beta 2 - v4.00 Beta 3

1. 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.
2. Bugs fixed:
a) previous beta could fail to unpack self-extracting and multivolume CAB archives;
b) "Create a new folder" command always created new folders in the root archive folder;
c) "Remove redundant folders from extraction path" option did not work;
d) previous beta crashed when displaying archive comments with ANSI escape sequences;
e) switches -cl and -cu did not work.

Changes for v4.00 Beta 1 - v4.0 Beta 2

1. "Reenter password for verification" field is not displayed in password dialog when extracting or opening an encrypted archive. It is present only when archiving and only if "Show password" option is off.
2. If you enabled "Use for all archives" option when entering the default password (Ctrl+P) and specified the empty password, extract and test commands will skip all encrypted archives.
3. If you prefer to use "Install" button instead of "Extract" in SFX module, but do not need any setup programs, you can add "Setup=<>" command to archive comment or enter "<>" as setup name in "Advanced SFX options" dialog.
We changed it to "Setup=<>" instead of "Setup" as in the first beta, because presence of specific parameter allows to enable this mode also through "Advanced SFX options" dialog, by entering "<>" as setup name.
4. Bugs fixed:
a) extraction operation activated from Explorer context menu could fail if several archives were selected and processed at once;
b) WinRAR window title did not contain the current disk name, when browsing the root disk folder;
c) items related to extraction were not present in Explorer context menu for 7-Zip self-extracting archives;
d) sorting by "Type" in WinRAR shell did not work inside of archives.

Changes for v3.93 - v4.00 Beta 1

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 Blue-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.
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 you need to run WinRAR on older Windows, you can download previous WinRAR versions from ftp://ftp.rarlab.com/rar
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 links 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 requirement 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 without any parameters.
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.
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.

Changes for v3.92 - v3.93

Changes for v3.91 - v3.92

If you start WinRAR command from Explorer context menu in multiple monitor configuration, the command dialog will be displayed on the same monitor as context menu. In previous versions it was always displayed on primary monitor.
WinRAR "Compress and email..." context menu command adds the archive name to email subject. Previous versions left the subject blank.
In RAR 3.91 -x switch could also exclude folders from archiving even if mask contained wilcard characters and did not contain a path. For example, -x*. excluded all those folders, which do not have the extension in the name. Now -x switch uses RAR 3.80 approach for masks without path, excluding folders only if mask does not contain wildcards and matches the folder name exactly.
Bugs fixed:
WinRAR 3.91 reported the incorrect "Unexpected end of archive" error, when opening an empty ZIP archive created with "New WinRAR ZIP archive" context menu command;
if "Delete archive" option was enabled when unpacking several ZIP archives and if one of archives was damaged, WinRAR did not delete archives after the damaged one, even if they were unpacked successfully;
if file matched two different masks in RarFiles.lst, WinRAR could select the last match. Normally, if neither of masks is a subset of another, the first match must be chosen.

Changes for v3.91 - v3.92 Beta 1

1. If you start WinRAR command from Explorer context menu in multiple monitor configuration, the command dialog will be displayed on the same monitor as context menu. In previous versions it was always displayed on primary monitor.
2. WinRAR "Compress and email..." context menu command adds the archive
3. In RAR 3.91 -x switch could also exclude folders from archiving even if mask contained wilcard characters and did not contain a path. For example, -x*. excluded all those folders, which do not have the extension in the name. Now -x switch uses RAR 3.80 approach for masks without path, excluding folders only if mask does not contain wildcards and matches the folder name exactly.
4. Bugs fixed:
a) WinRAR 3.91 reported the incorrect "Unexpected end of archive" error, when opening an empty ZIP archive created with "New WinRAR ZIP archive" context menu command;
b) if "Delete archive" option was enabled when unpacking several ZIP archives and if one of archives was damaged, WinRAR did not delete archives after the damaged one, even if they were unpacked successfully;
c) if file matched two different masks in RarFiles.lst, WinRAR could select the last match. Normally, if neither of masks is a subset of another, the first match must be chosen.

Changes for v3.90 - v3.91

1. This version can decompress 7-Zip archives created with LZMA2 algorithm.
2. Now a password is requested only once when unpacking 7z archives with encrypted file names from context menu. WinRAR 3.90 asked it twice.
3. This version can unpack tar.bz2 archives consisting of several smaller bz2 streams merged together. Previous versions unpacked only the first nested bz2 stream in such composite archive.
4. WinRAR displays CRC32 of files inside of usual .gz (not .tar.gz) archives. Previous versions left this field blank for GZIP files.
5. Bugs fixed:
a) WinRAR 3.90 displayed "Save" button instead of "Open" or "OK" in "Find archive" dialog ("Open archive" command in "File" menu and "Browse..." command in archiving dialog);
b) WinRAR could display incorrect file names when browsing malformed ZIP archives;
c) WinRAR 3.90 failed to decompress LZH archives created with "-lh7-" algorithm;
d) WinRAR 3.90 could fail to delete a part of files after archiving if delete to Recycle Bin was enabled. This bug was present when working in Windows XP, but not in Windows Vista and Windows 7;
e) when unpacking ISO file using WinRAR "Extract files..." command in Explorer context menu, WinRAR could unpack same archived files twice during the same operation. It displayed the overwrite prompt when unpacking files for the second time;
f) hexadecimal search in WinRAR 3.90 "Find" command and console RAR "ih" command failed to find matches if first byte in search string was greater than 127.

Changes for v3.91 Beta 1 - v3.91 Beta 2

WinRAR might crash when testing corrupt CAB files.
Beta 1 crashed on some of TAR.BZ2 archives.
Total progress bar could be displayed incorrectly in "Convert archives" command in beta 1.
SFX archives set the wrong value to "sfxcmd" environment variabe

Changes for v3.90 - v3.91 Beta 1

This version can decompress 7-Zip archives created with LZMA2 algorithm.
Now a password is requested only once when unpacking 7z archives with encrypted file names from context menu. WinRAR 3.90 asked it twice.
This version can unpack tar.bz2 archives consisting of several smaller bz2 streams merged together. Previous versions unpacked only the first nested bz2 stream in such composite archive.
WinRAR displays CRC32 of files inside of usual .gz (not .tar.gz) archives. Previous versions left this field blank for GZIP files.
Bugs fixed:
WinRAR 3.90 displayed "Save" button instead of "Open" or "OK" in "Find archive" dialog ("Open archive" command in "File" menu and "Browse..." command in archiving dialog);
WinRAR could display incorrect file names when browsing malformed ZIP archives;
WinRAR 3.90 failed to decompress LZH archives created with "-lh7-" algorithm;
WinRAR 3.90 could fail to delete a part of files after archiving if delete to Recycle Bin was enabled. This bug was present when working in Windows XP, but not in Windows Vista and Windows 7;
when unpacking ISO file using WinRAR "Extract files..." command in Explorer context menu, WinRAR could unpack same archived files twice during the same operation. It displayed the overwrite prompt when unpacking files for the second time;
hexadecimal search in WinRAR 3.90 "Find" command and console RAR "ih" command failed to find matches if first byte in search string was greater than 127.

Changes for v3.80 - v3.90

1. WinRAR version for Windows x64 is available. If you use Windows x64, it is strongly recommended to install 64 bit WinRAR version. It provides a higher performance and better shell integration than 32 bit version.
2. RAR compression speed is improved for multi-core and multi-CPU systems. This improvement is most noticeable in Windows Vista and Windows 7 operating systems.
3. "Remove duplicate folders from extraction path" option in "Settings/Compression" dialog is replaced by more universal "Remove redundant folders from extraction path" option. This option will eliminate redundant archive name based folders from extraction path if you unpack an archive with "Extract to DestName\" context menu command and if archive root folder contains only one folder and no files.
4. Changes in "Extraction path and options" dialog:
a) "New folder" button creates a new subfolder in currently selected folder;
b) F2 key renames a selected folder in the folders tree;
c) F5 key updated the tree pane contents;
d) Del key removes a selected folder in the folders tree.
5. You can enable "Show seconds" option in "Settings/File list" dialog if you wish to see seconds in file dates in file list in WinRAR shell.
6. "Where to check for SFX archives" options group in "Settings/Integration/Context menus items" dialog lets you to control processing of SFX archives in context menus. For example, if you frequently right click ".exe" files on slow network disks, you can turn off "Network disks" options to minimize the delay before displaying the context menu.
7. If you sort files by name in the file list in WinRAR shell, WinRAR will use the new logical file name sorting, same as in Windows Explorer, considering digits in file names by their numerical value. So files will be sorted as 1.txt, 2.txt, 10.txt instead of previous 1.txt, 10.txt, 2.txt. This new sort behavior is available in Windows XP Service Pack 2 and newer.
8. Ctrl+W key combination can be used to close the main WinRAR window also as WinRAR viewer windows. "View as Windows text" shortcut in WinRAR viewer changed from Ctrl+W to Ctrl+I.
9. New command line switch -r- disables recursion completely. So 'rar a -r- arc dirname' command will add only the empty dirname folder and ignore its contents. By default, if dirname does not include wildcards, RAR adds its contents even if -r switch is not specified.
10. If used when extracting, the new command line switch -ai forces RAR to ignore file attributes. When using this switch, extracted files will always have attributes assigned by operating system to a newly created file by default.
11. If output file name is not specified in "cw" command, console RAR will send comment data to stdout.
12. When compressing stdin data with -si[name] switch, RAR sets modification time of archived entry to current system time. Previous RAR versions did not fill this field, resulting in meaningless modification time for stdin.
13. Message displayed when you place the mouse cursor on WinRAR tray icon includes the archive name now. Previously only time left and total percent were displayed for archiving operations.
14. New 'Shutdown' variable in 'Software\WinRAR\Policy' registry key allows to disable "Turn PC off when done" option for security reasons. Read "Configuration settings/Registry variables" for more details.
15. Better shell extension performance. Now WinRAR context menu will be more responsive when working with thousands of selected files.
16. Improved compatibility with high DPI Windows display mode.
17. Bugs fixed:
a) WinRAR could fail to open tar or tar.gz archive if such archive contained a file larger than 8 GB;
b) WinRAR context menu did not work properly in Windows 7 beta if icons in context menus were enabled and user clicked a file inside of Windows 7 Library folder;
c) previous WinRAR versions failed to rename files having 5 or more continuous spaces in the name. WinRAR shell does not display such spaces for safety reasons, because they can hide an actual file extension. But this security measure prevented the rename command to work properly.

Changes for v3.90 Beta 4 - v3.90 Beta 5

Bugs fixed:
"Convert" command could fail if original and resulting archives were multivolume and name of original archive included DBCS (Chinese, Japanese or Korean) characters;
WinRAR did not add "Extract to folder\" item to Windows context menus for ZIP archives if Windows Compressed Folders was active.

Changes for v3.90 Beta 2 - v3.90 Beta 3

Changes for v3.90 Beta 1 - v3.90 Beta 2

Delay between right clicking selected files in Windows Explorer and displaying the context menu is reduced. This delay can be noticeable, when you right click several thousands of files.
Bugs fixed:
dragging a file over an existing archive in Windows Explorer did not work for 64 bit WinRAR;
64 bit beta 1 shell extension crashed if user right clicked "Startup" folder in Start Menu and selected "Open" or "Explore" commands;
"Scan archive for viruses" command in 64 bit beta 1 could fail to autodetect some of 32 bit antiviruses detected by 32 bit version;
beta 1 hung when the entire folder specified as a mask was excluded: 'rar a -xfolder arc folder';
sometimes beta 1 could hang when creating a new RAR archive if archive comment or one of advanced NTFS options was specified;
ZIP encryption code was updated to include recent InfoZip fixes;
64 bit version did not store the toolbar layout.

Version history for WinRAR (64-bit)

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