RAR and WinRAR are not free products. When you purchase a license from our online store, you will register your installed copy by following the instructions for your configuration outlined below.

1. Find the email you received with the attachment containing your license key. Save that attachment to your desktop in the same way you would save any normal attachment from your email. The attachment will likely be called rarreg.txt.
2. Copy the license key to the WinRAR folder through one of the two methods shown below
   • Method 1:
     • Launch WinRAR from your Start menu.
     • Drag and drop the file rarreg.txt into the WinRAR program window
   OR
   • or Method 2:
     • Browse to the C:\Program Files\WinRAR folder by double-clicking on the Computer icon, then double-clicking on the C drive, and then Program Files and then double-click on the WinRAR folder.
     • Copy the rarreg.txt file into the WinRAR folder either by right-clicking on the file and choosing Copy and then Pasting it into the WinRAR folder, or you can drag and drop the file into the folder.
3. Confirming successful registration by launching the WinRAR application by clicking on Start, All Programs, WinRAR then click on the WinRAR icon to launch WinRAR (or search the start menu for WinRAR)
4. Confirm the title bar of the WinRAR application window does not say "evaluation"
5. Click on Help, About WinRAR from the menu and view the section labled Registered To. If this section has your information, then the license key installation worked. Unlicensed copies will say Trial Copy.

1. Copy the rarreg.txt file to the home directory of the person you are registering for.
2. Log in as the user and execute rar to validate that it is now registered.

1. Start Outlook Express
2. Click on Tools, and then Options
3. Click on the Security tab
4. Uncheck the option: "Do not allow attachments to be saved or opened that could potentially be a virus"
5. Click Ok
6. Save the key file listed as part of the normal registration process above
7. Return to the security tab and re-enable the option: "Do not allow attachments to be saved or opened that could potentially be a virus"

Another issue is your email provider may have delivered the license key to your spam or suspect email folders, and it may get overlooked. Please be sure to check these areas to confirm the license key was not misfiled by your email provider. In other cases, email providers simply delete the email if they feel it is spam or meets other criteria. If you are known to have issues receiving certain types of files, please let us know so we can assist.

If it has been longer than 24 hours, then please use the contact us link and send us a message with your order number, and we can arrange to resend your license key.

Further, if you get your email from either MSN or Hotmail, then Microsoft has probably deleted this message and did not notify you or us of the delivery problem. If you use email from these providers, then send us a message with the contact us link providing your order number, and request the keys be sent in another format. Please report this problem to Microsoft so they can fix their overzealous filters (MSN and Hotmail are the only email systems we've encountered with this problem).

1. Make sure you have a backup of your license key (rarreg.txt)
2. Download the latest version (release or beta) and save it to your hard drive
3. Make sure WinRAR or RAR is not running on your machine anywhere
4. Double-click on the downloaded installation file and proceed to install WinRAR or RAR over your existing installation (all settings, configurations and so forth are retained)
5. WinRAR looks for the presence of your license key each time it launches and it will detect the key there during startup.