WinRAR - What's new in the latest version

Version 5.50 beta 1

1. WinRAR and command line RAR use RAR 5.0 archive format by default.
You can change it to RAR 4.x compatible format with "RAR4" option
in archiving dialog or -ma4 command line switch.
If you prefer RAR 4.x format by default, use "Create default..."
button on "Compression" page of WinRAR settings and set "RAR4"
in the displayed dialog.
This change affects only new clean installs. If you already saved
RAR format in the default compression profile in previous versions,
WinRAR respects stored settings.
2. Use "Set master password" button in "Organize passwords" dialog
to encrypt saved password records and protect them from unauthorized
access.
If saved passwords are protected with master password, you need to
enter the master password and press "OK" in password prompt to access
them. If entered password does not match the master password,
it is treated as a usual password for archive operations.
Once entered, the master password is valid until WinRAR is closed.
Close WinRAR and open it again after specifying the master password
if you wish to see how protection works. Enter a valid and then
empty master password to remove encryption from previously protected
password records.
This WinRAR version uses a new data format for password organizer,
so passwords stored in "Organize passwords" dialog are not readable
by older versions. It does not affect archive encryption formats
and encrypted archives are compatible with previous WinRAR version.
Organizer data is converted to a new format only when you save it
and not immediately after installing WinRAR.
3. Prompt proposing to set the master password is displayed
when storing a password in compression profile. You can enter
the master password to encrypt password data stored in Registry
and protect it from unauthorized access. You will need to enter
the master password in password prompt dialog to access
such compression profile after that.
Once entered, the master password is valid until WinRAR is closed.
Close WinRAR and open it again after specifying the master password
if you wish to see how protection works.
4. By default, WinRAR uses AES-256 in CTR mode to encrypt ZIP archives.
While AES-256 is significantly more secure than ZIP 2.0 legacy
encryption algorithm, it can be incompatible with some older
unzip software. If compatibility with such tools is required,
you can enable "ZIP legacy encryption" option in the password
dialog or use -mezl switch in the command line mode.
5. Added extraction support for .LZ archives created by Lzip compressor.
6. Modern TAR tools can store high precision file times, lengthy
 file names and large file sizes in special PAX extended headers
inside of TAR archive. Now WinRAR supports such PAX headers
and uses them when extracting TAR archives.
7. New "Store modification time" option on "Time" page of archiving
dialog can be used to prohibit storing the file modification time
in RAR 5.x archives. Former "High precision modification time"
option is replaced by "High precision time format".
8. New "Full paths in title bar" option in "Settings/General" dialog.
If enabled, the full path of currently opened folder or archive
is displayed in WinRAR title bar.
9. New "Settings/Archives" page provides "File types to open as
archives first" group of options. Here you can define how Enter
or double click on a file with non-archive extension and archive
contents should be processed in WinRAR file list. Examples
of such files are .docx or self-extracting .exe archives.
You can instruct WinRAR to open such files as archives,
to run them, to handle them similarly or differently inside
and outside of archives, to never run specified file types
even if they do not include any archived contents.
Default settings are to open self-extracting exe and to run
other types of archives with non-archive extension.
Regardless of these options, you can always open any such
archive file by pressing Ctrl+PgDn on its name in WinRAR file list.
10. New "Copy full names to clipboard" command in "File" menu
places full names of selected files to clipboard.
This command is also added to context menu displayed
when right clicking the file list in WinRAR. Several other commands,
which are also present on the toolbar or in main menu,
such as "View" and "Repair", are removed from this context menu.
11. LZ and ZIPX are added to list of associations in Settings/Integration
dialog.
12. LZ and ZIPX extensions are added to default list of formats for
-ms switch ("Specify file types to store") invoked without parameters.
13. You can specify 'f' charset value in -sc switch to use UTF-8
encoding. For example:
rar a -scfl arcname @filelist.txt
to read contents of filelist.txt as UTF-8 text.
14. RAR "lt" and "vt" commands display file times with nanosecond
precision. Such precision is used in RAR5 archives created
by RAR/Unix 5.50 and newer. Archives created by WinRAR have 100ns
file time precision.
15. Only '+', '-' and '1' precision modifiers are supported
in -ts switch now. Use '+' to store the file time with maximum
precision, '-' to omit the file time and '1' to store it with
1 second precision. Intermediate precision modes previously
defined with '2' and '3' modifiers are not available in RAR 5.0
 archive format and ignored by -ts switch.
16. If a wrong password is entered when unpacking an encrypted file
in RAR5 archive, WinRAR proposes to enter a valid password
for same file again instead of aborting extraction.
17. File path information is displayed if mouse pointer is placed over
a name of archiving file in the operation progress window.
18. Name of currently active compression profile is displayed
in the archiving dialog above "Profiles..." button.
19. If "Find" command is invoked from inside of archive subfolder,
"File names to find" will include the path to this subfolder.
So "Find" will search only starting from this subfolder.
20. Bugs fixed:
a) WinRAR failed to unpack files in ZIP archives compressed
with XZ algorithm and encrypted with AES;
b) if "Windows progress bars" option in WinRAR settings was turned off
and "Put each file to separate archive" archiving mode was used,
"gold" part of total progress bar did not display the compressed
data ratio correctly;
c) SFX archive extraction progress was incorrect in case of
multivolume SFX archive with total volume size exceeding 4 GB;
d) if archived folder name included trailing spaces, if user
selected and extracted some folders in non-root archive folder
and if "Allow potentially incompatible names" extraction option
was turned off, WinRAR could lose one or more leading characters
in extracted folder name;
e) if only creation or only last access file time was stored in RAR5
archive with 1 second precision, such as with -ma5 -tsm- -tsa1
switches, this stored time was ignored when extracting.

Version 5.40
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 <pwd> 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.

Version 5.31
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.

Version 5.30
1. Information about the critical vulnerability in WinRAR self-extracting
archives published in news in September and October 2015 is incorrect.
Unfortunately mass media failed to recognize that what was described
as WinRAR vulnerability is Windows OLE vulnerability patched
in November 2014:
https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/security/ms14-064.aspx
Even if unpatched, this Windows OLE vulnerability does not introduce
new risk factors for WinRAR SFX archives.
Please read http://rarlab.com/vuln_sfx_html2.htm for more details.
No patches for WinRAR are needed.
2. Added extraction of multipart ZIP archives created by 7-Zip.
Such archives have .zip.001, .zip.002, ... file extensions.
You need to open .zip.001 file in WinRAR shell to browse
or unpack such archive. All parts must be stored in the same folder
before starting extraction.
3. Added extraction of files split to multiple parts with .001,
.002, ..., extensions. You can open .001 file as a usual archive
and then unpack its contents. WinRAR will combine all parts
and save them to extracted file. All parts must be stored
in the same folder before starting extraction.
"001" item is included to "Associate WinRAR with" list
in "Settings/Integration" dialog.
4. WinRAR file list allows to use mouse Back and Forward buttons
or Alt+Left and Alt+Right keyboard shortcuts to navigate
in recently visited folders.
5. Folder wildcards are allowed in RAR command line in file names to
archive. For example:
 rar a backup c:\backup\2015*\*
will archive all '2015*' folders in c:\backup. Use -r switch to search
for '2015*' also in c:\backup subfolders.
6. "Extract" button in SFX archive is changed to "Pause" when extraction
is started, so it is possible to pause SFX extraction and resume it
later.
7. "Skip encrypted" option in "Find files" dialog to silently skip
encrypted archives while performing search command.
8. Archive test command works for tar.gz, tar.bz2 and tar.xz archives.
Since TAR format does not provide file data checksums, WinRAR checks
only validity of GZIP, BZIP2 or XZ container.
9. Adding a new string to WinRAR diagnostic messages window could be
slow and affect the operation performance in case of thousands
of errors. Now it works fast regardless of errors number.
10. New 'R' object for -sc switch defines encoding of console
RAR messages sent to redirected files and pipes. For example:
rar lb -scur data > list.txt
will produce Unicode list.txt with archived file names.
11. Sleep time parameter in -ri<priority>[:<sleep_time>] switch is
adjusted to lower its impact to RAR performance and especially
to recovery record related operations. Higher sleep time values
are needed to reduce the system load to same level as
in previous versions.
12. Console RAR "l" and "v" commands display file time in YYYY-MM-DD
format.
13. When extracting RAR and ZIP archives created in Unix, WinRAR maps
decomposed Unicode characters to precomposed. Such conversion
is required for some Unix and OS X archives to correctly unpack
non-English archived names in Windows. It works for Windows versions
starting from Windows Vista.
14. Modification time is set for all folders created when unpacking
.7z archives. Previous versions set it only for non-empty folders.
15. WinRAR prevents a computer to go to sleep by inactivity timeout
until current operation, such as archiving, extraction or another
archive processing, is done.
16. Total progress bar is displayed when extracting .arj, .lzh and .cab
archives (except multivolume archives).
17. Progress bar is displayed when deleting files after archiving
and when clearing "Archive" attribute of archived files.
18. "Test" command also verifies contents of NTFS alternate data streams
in RAR 3.x - 5.x archives. Previously their contents was checked
only during extraction command.
19. SFX module sets sfxstime environment variable, which contains
the module start time in "YYYY-MM-DD-HH-MM-SS-ms" format.
You can specify it in Path command if you need to generate a time
based unique installation path, such as "Path=myapp-%sfxstime%".
20. Bugs fixed:
a) console RAR crashed instead of displaying an overwrite prompt
when attempting to add files to already existing volumes;
b) console RAR "lt" command did not display seconds in file timestamp;
c) WinRAR failed to decompress .xxe files if they did not include
"section N of xxencode" string in the body;
d) WinRAR could not restore contents of NTFS alternate data stream
saved with -os switch if it was split between different volumes.

Version 5.21
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.

Version 5.20
 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<num>"
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=<switches>" string. Now rar.ini also allows to specify
separate switch sets for individual RAR commands using
the following syntax:
switches_<command>=<any RAR switches, separated by spaces>
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<size> 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.

Version 5.11
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%.

Version 5.10
1. Added extraction support for ZIP and ZIPX archives using
BZIP2, LZMA and PPMd compression.
2. Added extraction support for 7z split archives
(.7z.001, .7z.002, ...).
3. Added support for AES-NI CPU instructions allowing to improve
RAR encryption and decryption performance.
4. Default theme images are scaled up with better quality
in high DPI display mode.
5. Environment variables, such as %temp%, can be used
in "Files to add" field of archiving dialog.
6. 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.

Version 5.01
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.

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.
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 -sc<charset>l 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 -sc<charset>g 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\
Version 4.20
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 <threads> value for -mt<threads> 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.

Version 4.11
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).

Version 4.10
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.
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;
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.

Version 4.00
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<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"
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.