Version history WinRAR

<<Back

Changes from 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 from 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 from 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.

Changes from v3.80 -> v3.90 Beta 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.
• 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.
• "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.
• 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.
• 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.
• "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.
• 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.
• 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.
• 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.
• 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.
• If output file name is not specified in "cw" command, console RAR will send comment data to stdout.
• 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.
• 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.
• 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 from v3.71 -> v3.80

• 1. Added support for ZIP archives containing Unicode file names in UTF-8 format. When creating ZIP archive, WinRAR stores names in Unicode only if they cannot be stored correctly using the current single byte character set.
• 2. Added decompression support for WinZip AES encrypted ZIP archives.
• 3. Improved Unicode support for RAR and ZIP archive names.
• 4. "Ask before overwrite" and "Skip existing files" update modes are now available in archiving dialog. They allow to specify WinRAR behavior when updating already existing files in archive. Unlike already available "Fresh existing files only" and "Add and update files", these new modes ignore file date and compare only file names.
• Command line equivalents of these modes are:
• a) switch -o enables "Ask before overwrite" archiving mode;
• b) switch -o- enables "Skip existing files" archiving mode;
• c) switch -o+ enables "Overwrite all" mode (default for archiving).
• 5. New "Add to context menu" option in "Profile parameters" dialog. If this option is on, the profile name will be displayed in Explorer context menus allowing to activate a profile from context menu.
• 6. New -cp switch allows to select a compression profile in command line mode. It is supported only by GUI WinRAR.exe, not by rar.exe.
• 7. New "Options" page of archiving dialog contains the group of settings modifying the behavior of "Delete files after archiving" option from "General" page:
• a) Delete files. Delete files normally like in previous WinRAR versions.
• b) Move files to Recycle Bin. Deleted files are placed to Recycle Bin. Command line equivalent of this option is -dr switch.
• c) Wipe files. Before deleting file data are overwritten by zero bytes to prevent recovery of deleted files. Command line equivalent of this option is -dw switch.
• All these options have an effect only if "Delete files after archiving" is on. You can enable any of these options in the default compression profile to change the default behavior of "Delete files after archiving".
• 8. WinRAR "Extraction path and options" dialog is now resizable. You can use the mouse to drag its border to the desired size and provide more space for folder tree pane. WinRAR will store new dimensions of this dialog.
• 9. New "Update" SFX script command and "Update mode" group of options in "Update" page of "Advanced SFX options" dialog. These command and options allow to check time and implement file time based updating;
• 10. SFX script "Shortcut" command and "Add shortcut..." command in "Advanced SFX options" dialog now allow to specify an icon file containing an icon associated with shortcut.
• 11. New "Wipe temporary files" option in "Settings/Security" dialog provides more secure, though slower, way to delete temporary WinRAR files.
• 12. WinRAR and RAR display the total progress bar when unpacking a multivolume RAR archive if all volumes are present in the same folder.
• 13. WinRAR and RAR automatically expand names of environment variables in list files. For example, a list file can contain lines like: %windir%\*.exe. %USERPROFILE%\Desktop. This feature is available only in Windows RAR version.
• 14. Added support of TAR archives with non-zero "extra field" data.
• 15. Added support of TAR archives, which does not containthe end of archive entry consisting of 512 zero bytes.
• 16. Improved Unicode support when dragging files from WinRAR window.
• 17. Shift+Tab key combination can be used in main WinRAR window to switch the input focus between interface elements (files, comment, tree, address) in reverse order. In previous versions Shift+Tab used the same order as Tab.
• 18. Corrected a possible WinRAR crash when opening truncated UDF ISO files.

Changes from v3.80 Beta 4 -> v3.80 Beta 5

• It is now possible to include quotation marks in command line parameters of WinRAR GUI self-extracting modules. Use two consecutive quotation marks if you need to do that.
• WinRAR displays the total progress bar when extracting TAR archives.

Changes from v3.80 Beta 2 -> v3.80 Beta 3

• Console RAR displays the percent of repacked data when updating files in solid archive. Previously the repacking progress indicator was available only in GUI WinRAR.
• Switch -ieml.[arcname] did not delete an archive after emailing iteven if dot character was specified in the switch.

Changes from v3.71 -> v3.80 Beta 1

• Added support for ZIP archives containing Unicode file names in UTF-8 format
• Added decompression support for WinZip AES encrypted ZIP archives
• Improved Unicode support for RAR and ZIP archive names
• "Ask before overwrite" and "Skip existing files" update modes are now available in archiving dialog
• New "Add to context menu" option in "Profile parameters" dialog
• New -cp switch allows to select a compression profile in command line mode. It is supported only by GUI WinRAR.exe, not by rar.exe
• New "Options" page of archiving dialog contains the group of settings modifying the behavior of "Delete files after archiving" option from "General" page
• WinRAR "Extraction path and options" dialog is now resizable
• New "Update" SFX script command and "Update mode" group of options in "Update" page of "Advanced SFX options" dialog
• SFX script "Shortcut" command and "Add shortcut..." command in "Advanced SFX options" dialog now allow to specify an icon file containing an icon associated with shortcut
• New "Wipe temporary files" option in "Settings/Security" dialog provides more secure, though slower, way to delete temporary WinRAR files
• WinRAR and RAR display the total progress bar when unpacking a multivolume RAR archive if all volumes are present in the same folder
• WinRAR and RAR automatically expand names of environment variables in list files
• Added support of TAR archives with non-zero "extra field" data
• Added support of TAR archives, which does not contain the end of archive entry consisting of 512 zero bytes

Changes from v3.70 -> v3.71

• Archive names in rar.log error log file always include the full path.
• WinRAR tray icon is compatible with high DPI display modes.
• If you modified a file in archive with encrypted names using an external editor, WinRAR will not ask for archive password again when prompting to update a file. It will use a password which you entered when opening an archive,
• switch -tl and "Set archive time to latest file time" option could fail in previous version. Sometimes they set archive time to current system time instead of latest file time;
• if -ag switch mask contained archive number, month and minute characters, WinRAR placed 'I' character instead of minute value into generated archive name for archive numbers exceeding 1;
• high ASCII names in ISO files using ISO 9660 format without Joliet format extension were displayed incorrectly;
• WinRAR could crash when decompressing some of corrupt RAR archives;
• if "Turn PC off when done" option was set in "Convert archives" command, WinRAR turned PC off after converting the first archive in selected group instead of after converting the entire group;
• if user specified a non-existent destination path in SFX archive in Vista, SFX could enter into infinite "create new SFX window" loop;
• WinRAR could fail to unpack an individual file from subfolder of ACE archive using the drag and drop.

Changes from v3.70 -> v3.71 Beta 1

• Archive names in rar.log error log file always include the full path
• WinRAR tray icon is compatible with high DPI display modes
• If you modified a file in archive with encrypted names using an external editor, WinRAR will not ask for archive password again when prompting to update a file. It will use a password which you entered when opening an archive
• Bugs fixed: switch -tl and "Set archive time to latest file time" option could fail in previous version. Sometimes they set archive time to current system time instead of latest file time
• Bugs fixed: if -ag switch mask contained archive number, month and minute characters, WinRAR placed 'I' character instead of minute value into generated archive name for archive numbers exceeding 1
• Bugs fixed: high ASCII names in ISO files using ISO 9660 format without Joliet format extension were displayed incorrectly
• Bugs fixed: WinRAR could crash when decompressing some of corrupt RAR archives
• Bugs fixed: if "Turn PC off when done" option was set in "Convert archives" command, WinRAR turned PC off after converting the first archive in selected group instead of after converting the entire group
• Bugs fixed: if user specified a non-existent destination path in SFX archive in Vista, SFX could enter into infinite "create new SFX window" loop
• Bugs fixed: WinRAR could fail to unpack an individual file from subfolder of ACE archive using the drag and drop

Changes from v3.62 -> v3.70

• Numerous Windows Vista compatibility changes
• Added support for ISO 13346 (UDF) file format. This format is frequently used in ISO images of DVD disks
• Added Unicode support for ISO 9660 files, so WinRAR should handle non-English file names in .iso files better
• Design changes in window displaying archiving and extraction progress
• GUI self-extracting modules support following command line switches
• GUI self-extracting modules do not pass the entire command line to setup program like they did in previous versions
• New switch -sc[objects] allowing to select character sets for archive comments and list files
• New "Save archive copy as..." command in "File" menu
• "Word wrap" command added to "View" menu of WinRAR internal viewer, so you can change the wrapping mode of already opened viewer window
• Buttons "Up" and "Down" added to "Organize profiles" dialog
• Operation progress is displayed when adding the recovery record
• If WinRAR is minimized to tray and mouse is over its icon, WinRAR diplays a message about the current operation progress
• Console RAR displays "Calculating the control sum" message when calculating CRC32 control sum for newly created RAR volume
• Archives history list in "File" menu allows Unicode names, providing more reliable support for non-English archive names
• Stack overflow vulnerability has been corrected in password processing module of console RAR and UnRAR. GUI WinRAR is not affected

Changes from v3.70 Beta 7 -> v3.70 Beta 8

• WinRAR shell extension did not work in Windows NT 4.0;
• when unpacking ZIP archives in command line mode WinRAR returned "write error" (numeric 5) code in situations when it should return "create error" (numeric 9).

Changes from v3.70 Beta 6 -> v3.70 Beta 7

• -ioff switch did not work in unrar.exe;
• WinRAR 3.70 beta failed to process volumes with malformed file name extensions like .rar, .002, .r03. It continued to ask for next volume even after specifying its exact name;
• WinRAR shell extension did not work in Windows 95.

Changes from v3.70 Beta 5 -> v3.70 Beta 6

• Fixed: WinRAR shell did not allow to create recovery volumes for locked RAR volumes. Now the recovery volumes option is accessible for both locked and not locked RAR volumes
• Fixed: WinRAR displayed incorrect sizes for files inside of UDF ISO archives if file size exceeded 4 GB. Such files were unpacked correctly, but their sizes in file list window were displayed wrong

Changes from v3.70 Beta 4 -> v3.70 Beta 5

• when unpacking TAR archives, WinRAR 3.70 beta versions truncated unpacked names by one character if length of unpacked file name was 100 characters or more;
• WinRAR 3.70 beta versions could fail to properly unpack RAR volumes if number of volumes exceeded 100 and volumes used the old style naming scheme.

Changes from v3.70 Beta 3 -> v3.70 Beta 4

• New "Request administrative access" option in "Advanced" page of "Advanced SFX options" allows to create SFX archive, which will request the administrative access when started in Windows Vista. Command line equivalent of this option is -iadm switch.
• Correction in DBCS encoding (Japanese, Chinese, etc.) support in WinRAR shell extension for Windows 9x/Me.
• Corrected a bug in extracting files from UDF ISO images exceeding 4 GB.

Changes from v3.70 Beta 2 -> v3.70 Beta 3

• 1. It is possible to set the string value "AppData" in Registry key HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\WinRAR\Paths to override the default %appdata%\WinRAR path for WinRAR settings. For example, if you wish to store theme files in WinRAR folder, set this value to "c:\Program Files\WinRAR".
• 2. Total progress bar is displayed when unpacking UDF ISO files.
• 3. In previous versions archive icons were not changed when selecting a new WinRAR theme in Windows Vista.
• 4. WinRAR displays a warning if resulting archive is self-extracting and archive size exceeds 4 GB. Windows cannot run executables of such size.
• 5. Corrections in ISO processing code.

Changes from v3.70 Beta 1 -> v3.70 Beta 2

• 1. Positions of "Mode" and "Cancel" buttons in archiving dialog have been exchanged.
• 2. Bugs corrected:
• a) beta 1 could truncate names of files decompressed from ISO 9660 archives by one character;
• b) progress bars in archive conversion window did not work correctly with "Windows progress bars" option turned on;
• c) "Load WinRAR settings from" dialog did not displayed if settings.reg was not present in %appdata%\WinRAR folder.

Changes from v3.61 -> v3.62

• stack overflow vulnerability has been corrected in WinRAR module processing 7-Zip archives
• WinRAR GZip module could set a wrong file date when unpacking GZip archives.

<<Back