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Whats New
Whats New
Whats New
Version 5.00
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<size>
switch to change this value;
c) -md<size> 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.
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.
18. Volume size in archiving and wizard dialogs can be specified as
a decimal fraction. Decimal mark is defined by Windows regional
settings.
-v<size> 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.
Version 4.01
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;
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<file> 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"
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.