Professional Documents
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Whats New
Whats New
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.
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..."
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.
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.