RAR and WinRAR Product Version History

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Version History

Select version you would like to view: 3.80 b4, 3.80 b3, 3.80 b2, 3.80 b1, 3.71, 3.70, 3.62, 3.61, 3.60, 3.51, 3.50, 3.42, 3.41, 3.40, 3.30, 3.20, 3.11, 3.10, 3.00

v3.80 b4
1. In some situations previous beta versions could fail to create RAR recovery volumes
2. In previous beta versions it was impossible to change a name of next volume in "Next volume" dialog. Volume name specified by user was ignored

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v3.80 b3
1. 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.
2. Switch -ieml.[arcname] did not delete an archive after emailing it even if dot character was specified in the switch.

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v3.80 b2
1. Beta 1 could display random garbage characters in context menu in Windows x64
2. Beta 1 could display only a part of files in tar.gz archives
3. beta 1 could fail to set timestamps for files extracted from ZIP archives
4. beta 1 could issue a rename error message and abort when creating RAR volumes with Unicode characters in archive name

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v3.80 b1
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: \*.exe \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 contain the 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.

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v3.71
1. Archive names in rar.log error log file always include the full path
2. WinRAR tray icon is compatible with high DPI display modes
3. 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
4. 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
5. 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
6. high ASCII names in ISO files using ISO 9660 format without Joliet format extension were displayed incorrectly
7. WinRAR could crash when decompressing some of corrupt RAR archives
8. 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
9. if user specified a non-existent destination path in SFX archive in Vista, SFX could enter into infinite "create new SFX window" loop
10. WinRAR could fail to unpack an individual file from sub-folder of ACE archive using the drag and drop

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v3.70
1. Windows Vista compatibility change: Help format changed from old HLP to newer HTML based CHM;
2. Windows Vista compatibility change: GUI self-extracting modules attempt to request for administrator permissions if they cannot create destination folder under current user account
3. Windows Vista compatibility change: Log file rar.log and WinRAR theme files are stored in \WinRAR folder instead of WinRAR program files folder. Exported settings file settings.reg is also stored in \WinRAR folder by default, but it is possible to select another folder in "Save WinRAR settings" and "Load WinRAR settings" dialogs. WinRAR searches for registration key and settings.reg both in its program files folder and in \WinRAR; It is possible to set the string value "AppData" in Registry key HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\WinRAR\Paths to override the default \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".
4. Windows Vista compatibility change: WinRAR shell integration
5. Windows Vista compatibility change: 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
6. Added support for ISO 13346 (UDF) file format. This format is frequently used in ISO images of DVD disks.
7. Added Unicode support for ISO 9660 files, so WinRAR should handle non-English file names in .iso files better.
8. Design changes in window displaying archiving and extraction progress: a) it provides more space for file names, allowing lengthy names; b) it displays the current archive name in separate line, allowing much longer archive names than before; c) when archiving, it displays the current compression ratio in separate line; d) it can use both standard Windows and classic WinRAR progress bars. Turn on "Windows progress bars" option in WinRAR "Settings/General" dialog to use standard progress bars. By default this option is on if some Windows visual style is active and off if Windows Classic theme is selected. Windows progress bars are two color only, so they do not indicate the current compression ratio. But now the ratio is displayed in separate line; e) "Mode..." button moved to bottom of window.
9. GUI self-extracting modules support following command line switches: -d set the destination path -p specify a password -s silent mode, hide all -s1 same as -s -s2 silent mode, hide start dialog -sp specify parameters for setup program
10. GUI self-extracting modules do not pass the entire command line to setup program like they did in previous versions. If you need to get access to entire command line of SFX archive, parse sfxcmd environment variable which contains this command line.
11. New switch -sc[objects] allowing to select character sets for archive comments and list files. It replaces -fcu switch introduced in RAR 3.60, which was removed from list of supported switches. Now you need to specify -scuc instead of -fcu to use Unicode comments. Unlike -fcu, -sc also supports OEM and ANSI charset.
12. New "Save archive copy as..." command in "File" menu. This command may be useful if you opened an archive from Internet directly in WinRAR and then decided to save it on local disk.
13. "Word wrap" command added to "View" menu of WinRAR internal viewer, so you can change the wrapping mode of already opened viewer window. State of this option is not stored between viewing sessions. If you need to change the default word wrap mode, use WinRAR "Settings/Viewer" dialog.
14. Buttons "Up" and "Down" added to "Organize profiles" dialog. Using these buttons you can change position of selected profile in the list.
15. Operation progress is displayed when adding the recovery record.
16. If WinRAR is minimized to tray and mouse is over its icon, WinRAR displays a message about the current operation progress. In previous versions it included only percent done, now it also contains the time left information.
17. Console RAR displays "Calculating the control sum" message when calculating CRC32 control sum for newly created RAR volume. Previous versions also calculated the volume control sum, but did it silently.
18. Archives history list in "File" menu allows Unicode names, providing more reliable support for non-English archive names.
19. Stack overflow vulnerability has been corrected in password processing module of console RAR and UnRAR. GUI WinRAR is not affected. We are thankful to the iDEFENSE LABS for reporting this bug.

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v3.62
1. Stack overflow vulnerability has been corrected in WinRAR module processing 7-Zip archives
2. WinRAR GZip module could set a wrong file date when unpacking GZip archives

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v3.61
1. Corrected a bug in multithreaded text compression module, which under some circumstances might result in corrupt archived data. This bug was present only in the multithreaded mode and only in WinRAR 3.60. RAR versions for other platforms are not affected.
2. Resolved a compatibility issue preventing WinRAR 3.60 to run in Windows 95.

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v3.60
1. Multithreaded version of RAR compression algorithm improves the compression speed on computers with several CPU, dual core CPU and processors with hyperthreading technology. Multithreading is enabled by default, but you can disable it in "General" part of "Settings" dialog. In the command line mode you can control multithreading with -mt switch.
2. WinRAR can display the folder tree panel allowing to navigate in disk and archive folders. Use "Options/Folder tree" submenu to enable the folder tree. It can be configured separately in file and archive management modes. Folder tree replaces "Browse for folder" command previously available in "File" menu and uses its Ctrl+T keyboard shortcut.
3. Now WinRAR "Rename" command also works with ZIP archives. Previous versions could rename files only in RAR archives.
4. Added decompression of LZH archives created with "-lh7-" algorithm.
5. New "Remove duplicate folders from extraction path" option in "Settings/Compression" dialog.
6. New "Define volume sizes..." button in "Settings/Compression". This button activates "Define volume sizes" dialog. Here you can customize the list of predefined volume sizes associated with "Split to volumes, bytes" field in archiving dialog.
7. Speed of RAR general compression increased for some data types. Depending on data type and size the gain may achieve 5 - 15.
8. New "Rename automatically" option in the extraction dialog and command line -or switch to rename extracted files automatically if file with the same name already exists. You can also enable the auto-renaming mode directly from the overwrite confirmation prompt with "Rename All" button. Renamed files will get names like 'filename(N).txt', where 'filename.txt' is the original file name and 'N' is a number.
9. "Set modification time" option in "Advanced" part of extraction dialog is accessible also for ZIP archives. Previously it could be changed only for RAR archives.
10. "Multithreading" option added to "Benchmark and hardware test" command, so you can compare performance of usual and multithreaded versions of RAR compression algorithm.
11. New 'ch' (change archive parameters) command line mode command. Its purpose is to apply switches like -av, -tl and -cl to archive.
12. New 'ch' (change archive parameters) command line mode command. Its purpose is to apply switches like -av, -tl and -cl to archive. New 'cv' command line mode command. It provides the command line interface to WinRAR "Convert archives" command. It is supported only by winrar.exe, not by rar.exe.
13. New command line -sl and -sm switches to set size limits of processing files.
14. New command line -fcu[file] switch allows to read archive comments from Unicode files. It also modifies behavior of "cw" command, setting the comment output format to Unicode.
15. 7Z added to list of formats stored without compression when using -ms switch without a parameter.
16. Switch -e[+] is now supported by most of command line operations including extracting and deleting files. Previously it was supported by only archiving command.
17. It is allowed to use environment variables in archive name in archiving dialog, in destination path in extraction dialog, in folder names on "Compression" and "Paths" pages in WinRAR settings. For example, you can enter '' in "Folder for temporary files" field.

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v3.51
1. Fixed two vulnerabilities, which could be exploited with specially crafted ACE and UUE/XXE archives
2. Previous version did not delete some of temporary files
3. WinRAR could crash when processing very long (more than 1024 characters) archive name parameter in the command line

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v3.50
1. Now it is possible to change WinRAR's look by installing interface themes. Theme files are available on http://www.rarlab.com/themes.htm Theme files are RAR archives, just open them in WinRAR to install. You can manage installed themes using "Options/Themes" menu.
2. WinRAR supports decompression of ZIP archives created using Zip64 format extension. Zip64 was introduced to remove original ZIP format limitations on archived file size.
3. Added support of multivolume (multipart) CAB archives.
4. New options in "Advanced" part of archiving dialog: * "Delete archive" options allow to delete extracted archives; * "Check authenticity information" option controls processing of authenticity information in RAR archives.
5. "Wait if other WinRAR copies are active" option in "Advanced" parts of archiving and extraction dialogs. If enabled, it waits while other WinRAR copies are creating, modifying or unpacking an archive and starts the operation only when other WinRAR tasks are complete. If you are going to perform several archiving or decompressing tasks, such queued execution can help to reduce the amount of disk seeks and improve overall performance.
6. WinRAR is able to integrate to Windows context menus also on Windows x64 systems.
7. SFX modules: * SFX modules are not compressed by UPX anymore, so they are larger now. UPX compression caused numerous false alerts by antivirus software. If you wish to use compressed modules, you can get UPX from http://upx.sourceforge.net and compress .sfx files in WinRAR folder; The default SFX logo can be replaced by a custom bitmap file. You can do it either with "Load SFX logo from the file" option in "Text and icon" part of "Advanced SFX options" dialog or using -iimg command line switch. Note that -iimg is not supported by console RAR, only GUI WinRAR recognizes it. This option is not supported in Windows 95, 98 and Me. Also you cannot use it if you compressed SFX modules by UPX. * It is possible to specify user defined SFX icons larger than 32x32 and with any color depth. Like the previous item, this improvement is valid only if SFX modules are not compressed by UPX and your operating system is not Windows 9x/Me; * DOS.SFX module moved to RAR/DOS32 distributive. If you need to create DOS SFX archives using WinRAR, just copy DOS.SFX to WinRAR folder.
8. "Wizard" command allows to specify a password when creating or updating an archive.
9. Previous WinRAR versions unpacked the complete archive contents if the user pressed Enter or double clicked on .exe, .htm and .html files. Now it is possible to define file masks to unpack everything for. Such masks can be entered on the "Viewer" page of the "Settings" dialog. For example, if you wish to unpack only a file under the cursor when you double click on archived HTML file, remove ".htm *.html" from this field.
10. Additional file name extensions for archive formats supported by WinRAR can be specified in the "User defined archive extensions" field on the "Integration" page of the "Settings" dialog. For example, if you have files with ".001" extension, which are in RAR format, you can enter "001" here to associate WinRAR with such files.
11. New "Show encrypted or compressed NTFS files in color" option in "File list" page of "Settings" dialog.
12. New "Lock toolbars" option in "General" page of "Settings" dialog and in the menu displayed after clicking the right mouse button on the toolbar. "Lock toolbars" precents accidental toolbar moving or resizing.
13. "Repair" and "Extract" commands replace invalid characters (colon, question mark, etc.) by underscore also in file names in ZIP archives. Previously WinRAR did it only for RAR archives.
14. New -n and -n@ switches set additional include filters, so only files matching the mask will be processed.
15. New -id[c,d,p,q] switch. Additionally to previously available -idp switch (disable percentage indicator), switches -idc, -idd and -idq instruct the console RAR to hide the copyright message, "Done" message and all information messages.
16. Switch -e+ allows to specify file include attributes mask. For example, you can use -e+h switch to compress only hidden files.
17. Switch -ver[n] supports the optional 'n' parameter also when archiving. It limits the maximum number of file versions.
18. If the short name of an already existing file is equal to the long name of an unpacking file, WinRAR changes the short name of the already existing file before unpacking. In such situation previous versions prompted to overwrite the existing file even though long file names were not equal.
19. Security changes: * WinRAR shell does not allow to run .pif files. Archived PIF files is one of typical ways for computer viruses to distribute; WinRAR shell does not allow to run files having 5 or more continuous spaces in the name. For example, "calc.txt .exe". Viruses frequently add such spaces to confuse users and hide the real extension. WinRAR shell removes these continuous spaces except first and last also when displaying names of such files in the file list.
20. In Windows XP WinRAR highlights the sorted column in the file list using the different color, like it is done in Windows Explorer.

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v3.42
1. Fixed a buffer overflow bug in WinRAR GUI "Delete" command, which could cause a crash when deleting a file in corrupt archive.

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v3.41
1. When adding new files to already existing RAR solid archive, RAR 3.40 compression ratio was lower than in RAR 3.30.
2. WinRAR "Repair" command could crash when repairing a corrupt ZIP archive.
3. If archived Unicode name is invalid, RAR 'l' and 'v' commands display ASCII file name instead of corrupt Unicode.

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v3.40
1. "Fastest" (-m1) RAR compression method has been modified to provide much higher compression speed and lower ratio. It may be useful for tasks requiring the high speed like regular backups. You may increase "Fastest" speed even more selecting 64KB compression dictionary instead of default 4MB.
2. WinRAR is able to decompress archives created by Unix 'compress' tool (.Z files). Like GZIP and BZIP2 archives, WinRAR opens tar.Z and .taz files in one step, so users do not need to unpack .tar manually.
3. WinRAR is able to decompress archives created by 7-Zip (.7z files). "Find" command is not supported for this archive type.
4. New "Security" dialog in WinRAR settings: a) "File types to exclude from extracting" option to prevent extracting of potentially dangerous files like .exe, .scr and .pif; b) "Propose to select virus scanner" option modifies behavior of "Scan archive for viruses" command. You may turn it off if you wish to skip the virus scanner selection dialog.
5. New command line switch -ep3 allows to save and restore full file paths including the drive letter. WinRAR shell equivalent of -ep3 switch are options "Store full paths including drive letter" in "Files/File paths" page of archiving dialog and "Extract absolute paths" in "Advanced/File paths" page of extracting dialog.
6. You may select and compress disks directly in "My Computer" view in WinRAR shell. Just choose "My Computer" in WinRAR address bar, select disks to compress and press "Add". If you selected more than one item, WinRAR will automatically set "Store full paths including drive letter" archiving mode.
7. If you selected several disks in Windows Explorer "My Computer" view and started archiving from context menu, WinRAR will automatically set "Store full paths including drive letter" mode when compressing them.
8. New command line switch -oc to restore NTFS "Compressed" attribute when extracting files. RAR always saves "Compressed" attribute when creating an archive, but does not restore it unless -oc switch has been specified. WinRAR shell equivalent of -oc switch is "Set attribute Compressed" option in "Advanced" part of extracting dialog.
9. Starting from this version RAR volumes contain the volume number field. If archive was created by WinRAR 3.40 or newer, you may view the volume number in the top line of "Info" dialog and in the address bar. In the command line mode the volume number is displayed by 'L' and 'V' commands in the line with the total volume information. This feature may be useful if original volume names are lost and you need to rename volumes to correct names.
10. Commands 'L' and 'V' display NTFS "Compressed" attribute in archive listing.
11. Switch -ag may include an optional text enclosed in '{' and '}' characters. This text is inserted into archive name. For example: -agHH{hours}MM{minutes} Same feature is supported in "Generate archive name by mask" field of WinRAR archiving dialog.
12. If switch -ac is specified, RAR will not reset "Archive" attribute of those files, which size or modification time was changed after starting the archiving operation. So files modified after placing them to archive and before clearing "Archive" attribute, will be included to next incremental backup. The same is true for WinRAR "Clear attribute "Archive" after compressing" GUI option.
13. If you use "Add to favorites" command inside of archive subfolder, WinRAR will save the subfolder and restore it when accessing to this favorite item. Previous versions were able to restore only the root archive folder.
14. When editing archived files, WinRAR proposes to update them immediately after detecting that file was changed. Previous versions waited until an external editor terminates before updating a changed file.
15. If you drop an archive to WinRAR address bar or toolbar, WinRAR will display its contents even if other archive is opened now. Previous versions proposed to add a dropped archive to browsing one. You may still drop an archive to WinRAR file list if you need to add it to browsing archive.
16. Corrected processing of corrupt LZH archives to exclude a possible crash when reading corrupt LZH file headers.
17. RAR and WinRAR display the operation progress while repairing an archive containing the recovery record.

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v3.30
1. New "Scan archive for viruses" command unpacks an archive to temporary folder and checks its contents with antivirus software installed on a user's computer.
2. New "Generate report" command creates a report containing the list of usual or archived files. You may optionally include a file size, date and CRC to report, choose the sort order, save report to file, send it to printer or copy to clipboard.
3. New "Benchmark and hardware test" command allows to compare performance of RAR compression algorithm on different computers and detect possible errors caused by hardware failures.
4. New "Print file" command is able to print both archived and usual files.
5. New "Tools" menu contains "Wizard", "Show information", "Convert archives", "Find files", "Repair", "Convert to SFX" commands previously available in "Commands" menu and new "Scan archive for viruses", "Generate report", "Benchmark and hardware test" commands.
6. WinRAR supports decompression of ZIP archives created using "Enhanced deflate" method.
7. WinRAR pre-allocates disk space for files unpacked from ZIP archives. It helps to reduce disk fragmentation, especially on NTFS disks. Previous versions did it only for RAR archives.
8. Now it is possible to decompress TAR, GZIP and ISO9660 archives of any size. Previous versions could not handle files of these formats, if they exceeded 2 GB.
9. Status bar displays the current operation progress, when reading contents of large tar.gz and tar.bz2 archives.
10. "Next volume" dialog allows to modify not only a name, but also a size of next volume, so you may create volumes of different size. This dialog is displayed if you create volumes on removable disks or set "Pause after each volume" option in "Advanced" part of archiving dialog.
11. Several -v switches can be specified in the command line mode to set different sizes for different volumes. For example, 'rar a -v100k -v200k -v300k arcname' command sets 100 KB size for first volume, 200KB for second and 300KB for all following volumes.
12. More WinRAR commands support Unicode in archive names. If your Windows is NT based (NT 4.0, 2000, XP, 2003), you may modify archives with non-English names regardless of Regional Settings.
13. Small and some of large icons have been updated by Francesco Indrio.
14. "Diagnostic message" window can be resized. It preserves new dimensions and restores them when activated the next time.
15. "Mode..." button in the archiving progress window allows to change the compression method and "Turn PC off when done" option on the fly.
16. WinRAR supports -cfg- switch in the command line mode. It forces WinRAR to ignore options saved in the default compression profile and RAR environment variable.
17. WinRAR opens .qpr and .qpk files (QNX packages) in one step, like it already does for .tar.gz archives.
18. Extraction command proposes to browse for missing CAB file in multivolume CAB sequence instead of "Cannot open" error.
19. "Rename" command displays a window with information about processing files.
20. "Convert" command checks the lowest allowed ratio before starting the archive test, so if resulting archive is too large, WinRAR does not waste time to test it.
21. "Files to exclude" field in the archiving dialog has "Append" button now, so you may browse for excluded files instead of entering their names manually.
22. WinRAR understands quotes inside of parameters in the command line mode. For example, "-pmy password" and -p"my password" will set the same password. Eariler WinRAR understood only the first syntax ("-pmy password") and only the console RAR handled both.
23. Data analyzing module is tuned to detect executable and audio data more accurately. Erroneous selecting of executable and audio algorithms could reduce the compression ratio in some situations.
24. WinRAR understands the command line switch -hp without a parameter and requests to enter a password when processing it.
25. WinRAR preserves NTFS streams of updated archives, if archive and temporary files are resided on NTFS partition. For example, if you entered some comments in "Summary" section of archive properties, they will not be lost when updating an archive using WinRAR. Do not confuse NTFS streams of archive itself and streams of archived files, latter can be preserved by previous versions as well.
26. It is possible to prohibit change of archiving password with "WinRAR\Policy\Password" Registry value. This feature may help to avoid encrypting of important data in multi-user environment. Read "Configuration settings/Registry variables" help topic for details.
27. "Select toolbar buttons" dialog allows to specify separators after any toolbar button.
28. New console RAR -si[name] switch to compress data from stdin (standard input).
29. Console RAR 'vt' and 'lt' commands display symlink target names, when listing RAR/Unix archives contained symbolic links. These commands also display NTFS stream names, when listing WinRAR archives contained streams.

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v3.20
1. Previous WinRAR and RAR versions stored only the file modification time and only in DOS FAT format with 2 seconds precision. While it was enough for FAT, modern file systems provide a higher precision. Now RAR format can preserve modification, creation and last access time with the precision up to 0.0000001 second. The following changes had been done to support this facility: a) new "Time" part of archiving dialog includes "File time to store" options controlling file time processing. Other time related options also had been moved from "Backup" to "Time" section; b) new "Advanced" part of extraction dialog contains "File time" options allowing to select time fields to restore; c) command line -ts switch chooses time fields to process and precision of these fields; Time precision provided by ZIP format is not changed and equal to 2 seconds.
2. Changes in the extraction dialog: a) extraction dialog has been split to "General" and "Advanced" parts; b) "Display files in Explorer" option in "General" part instructs WinRAR to open Explorer window and display contents of destination folder when extraction is done; c) "Save settings" button saves the current state of both parts ("General" and "Advanced"). Saved state will be used as the default when activating the dialog next time. WinRAR saves all options except the destination path; d) "Advanced" part includes "File time" options allowing to select time fields to restore; e) new "Set file security" option in "Advanced" part controls restoring of NTFS file security information. Previous versions always extracted this information.
3. It is possible to rename files inside of RAR archives. It can be done either with "Rename file" command in "Commands" menu or in the context menu displaying on the right mouse click. In the command line mode you may use 'rn' command for this purpose.
4. "Next volume" dialog allows to choose the disk or folder for a new volume. WinRAR displays this dialog when creating volumes on removable disks or if "Pause after each volume" option is switched on. Previous versions did not allow to modify the volume name here.
5. "Test" and "Convert" commands can be applied to archives directly from Explorer context menu. By default these menu items are disabled, but you may enable them in WinRAR"Settings/Integration/Context menu items..." dialog.
6. "Pause" item added to context menu displayed on the right mouse button click on WinRAR tray icon. So you may pause WinRAR minimized to tray and continue it without restoring WinRAR to normal window.
7. If one of SFX volumes is missing, SFX archive displays "Next volume" dialog proposing to browse for required volume.
8. WinRAR allows to resize the window containing results of "Find" command. It saves modified window dimensions and restores them when using "Find" next time.
9. Toolbar: a) "Toolbars..." button in "Settings/General" activates the dialog allowing to turn on or off the main WinRAR toolbar, the additional small toolbar containing "Up one level" button and the address bar with path or archive information; b) buttons may have a variable width. So few large button titles in localized versions will not increase the total toolbar size too much like it happened before; c) if the width of buttons exceeds the width of toolbar, you may click on the small arrow at the right side of toolbar and choose hidden buttons from the menu.
10. Console RAR 'lb' and 'vb' commands list contents of archive in the bare mode - file names without any additional information.
11. WinRAR recognizes one more tar long file name extension designed to overcome 100 characters file name limit in tar archives.
12. Gzip archives contained zero in the file time field are processed correctly. Previous versions could display random date values for such archives.
13. Recovery volumes: a) when creating recovery volumes, the required disk space is preallocated in the beginning of operation. It helps to minimize the disk fragmentation; b) console RAR displays the operation percentage when creating recovery volumes or reconstructing missing or corrupt volumes.
14. If "Save file security" option is enabled, folders will be archived after files which they contain. It is necessary to avoid the situation when security attributes of just unpacked folder do not allow to extract files to it.
15. Optional description can be entered in "Add to favorite" dialog. If such description is available, WinRAR will display it in "Favorites" menu instead of folder or archive name.

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v3.11
1. "Convert" command is able to process .tgz archives.
2. GUI SFX modules provide more detailed diagnostic messages for CRC errors or file create errors.
3. Command line RAR returns the exit code 9 in case of file create errors.
4. Bugs fixed: a) "Convert" command failed to convert archives in folders with non-English (high ASCII) names; b) WinRAR could crash when attempting to display too long file type inside of archive; c) -ag command line switch placed an incorrect value to minutes field; d) options "Put each file to separate archive" and "Turn PC off when done", if set together, switched the computer off after creating the first archive; e) SFX module could display unnecessary "http-equiv ..." string when started under Windows 95.

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v3.10
1. New "Find" command allows to search for text string in archives and usual files. Its command line equivalent is 'i' command.
2. New "Convert" command converts archives from one format to other. It can process a single archive or several selected archives at once. It is possible to select file folders to convert their contents.
3. Repair command: a) "Repair" is able to correct data erasure and insertion errors in RAR archives containing the recovery record. Earlier it was possible to fix only those errors, when an archive size was not changed; b) "Repair" uses fixed.arcname.rar and rebuilt.arcname.rar names for repaired archives, where 'arcname' is the name of original archive. Previous versions used _recover.rar and _reconst.rar names; c) It is possible to select several archives in WinRAR shell and repair them at once; d) 'R' command accepts wildcards in the archive name to repair several archives at once.
4. Recovery volumes: a) WinRAR attempts to reconstruct both missing and damaged volumes. Original copies of damaged volumes are renamed to *.bad. Previous version was able to reconstruct only missing volumes; b) WinRAR automatically detects corrupt recovery volumes and ignores them; c) Recovery volumes naming scheme changed from N1_N2_N3.rev to less complicated N.rev, where 'N' is the number of volume. Old style recovery volumes are also recognized and supported; d) WinRAR displays the progress bar while reconstructing volumes.
5. SFX modules: a) Start and License SFX dialogs had been redesigned; b) SFX provides fully functional HTML support in "Text" command. Earlier versions supported only very limited set of HTML tags; c) "SavePath" SFX script command and "Save and restore paths" option in "Advanced SFX settings" allow to save the destination path entered by user in Registry and then restore it when executing SFX archive next time.
6. Compression improved when adding small text files to already existing archive using "Best" (-m5) or "Forced text" (-mct+) modes.
7. "Flat folders view" command in "Options/File list" menu switches between the classic tree style view and flat view, when all archived files and folders are displayed in the same list.
8. Option "Turn PC off when done" in "Advanced" part of archiving dialog and command line switch -ioff turn a computer off after completing an operation. Hardware must support the power off feature.
9. Sizes of ZIP-100, CD-650MB and CD-700MB disks are added to predefined values in the volume size list in archiving dialog.
10. New command line switch -iicon specifies an icon to use in SFX archive created or updated by WinRAR. This switch is supported only by WinRAR, console RAR does not recognize it.
11. Now WinRAR opens tar.gz and tar.bz2 archives in one step, so users do not need to unpack .tar manually. WinRAR does not store temporary .tar files on the disk, all required operations are performed directly in memory.
12. WinRAR is able to decompress multipart ZIP archives (.zip, .z01, .z02, ...).
13. New 'N' (archive number) modifier for -ag switch and "Generate archive name by mask" backup option of archiving dialog. WinRAR searches for already existing archive with a generated name and if it is found, increments the archive number until generating a unique name. For example, if you use -agyymmdd-nn several times in the same day, every new archive name will include a new increasing number.
14. If rarfiles.lst contains such two masks that all files matched by one mask are also matched by other, that mask which matches a smaller subset of file names will have higher priority regardless of its position in the list. For example, in case of .cpp and f.cpp masks, f*.cpp has higher priority.
15. WinRAR displays CRC16 column inside of LZH archives.
16. It is possible to disable the main menu and settings dialog using "HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\WinRAR\Policy" or "HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\WinRAR\Policy" Registry key. This feature may help to preserve WinRAR settings in multiuser environment. Read "Configuration settings/Registry variables" topic in winrar.hlp for more details.

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v3.00
1. WinRAR recognizes and processes TAR @LongLink records. GNU TAR uses them to store names longer than 100 characters in TAR archives.
2. If you attempt to close the command window and an archiving or extraction operation is already performing for more than one minute, WinRAR will ask for confirmation.
3. Console rar.exe executed from NT service is continuing to run after user's logoff.
4. Improved processing of "Group Policies" settings. Earlier it was possible to open a disk disabled in the policies by pressing "Up" button inside of archive or entering its path in the address bar.
5. WinRAR uses new visual styles of Windows XP controls.
6. Improved Chinese and Japanese (DBCS encoded) names processing in ZIP archives (RAR format already supported such names since WinRAR 2.80). But anyway, it is recommended to use RAR format for such names, because it uses more portable Unicode encoding instead of ZIP DBCS.
7. Switch -ilog accepts the optional log file name parameter. For example, -ilogc:\log\backup.log.
8. It is possible to use wildcards in the path part of file mask in -x switch and "Files to exclude" field of the archiving dialog. For example, -x\temp\.
9. In the extraction dialog the entered folder is opened in the folders tree automatically as you type, with a small delay about 0.5 second. Also you may locate the currently entered folder name in the tree pressing "Display" button.
10. New '+' modifier for -ag switch allows to place the date string before a base archive name.
11. Console RAR sends error messages to stderr instead of stdout.
12. "Word wrap" option in "Settings/Viewer" selects the default wrapping mode in new internal viewer windows.
13. "Select toolbar buttons" dialog allows to change the order of toolbar buttons. Just select buttons to move and press "Up" or "Down". Also you may drag buttons directly on the toolbar while holding down the ALT key.
14. "Exit" button is added to the toolbar. It is disabled by default, you may enable it manually with "Select buttons..." in WinRAR settings.
15. Now RAR can update encrypted solid archives.
16. Switch -en disables adding "end of archive block". By default, RAR 3.0 adds "end of archive" block to the end of new or updated archive. It allows to skip external data like digital signatures safely, but in some special cases it may be useful to disable this feature. For example, if an archive is transferred between two systems via a unreliable link and at the same time a sender adds new files to it, it may be important to be sure that the already received file part will not be modified on the other end between transfer sessions.
17. Switch -af allows to define a type of new archive in WinRAR command line. can be 'rar' or 'zip'. For example, 'winrar a -afzip arc' will create arc.zip archive. This switch is supported only by WinRAR. Console RAR is not able to create ZIP archives.
18. Two new options in WinRAR "Settings/General": a) "Allow history in dialogs"; b) "Start in wizard mode".
19. Extract each archive to separate folder" item is present in Explorer context menu when unpacking a group of archives.
20. Switch -ad appends an archive name to destination path. It may be useful when unpacking a few archives at once, so files from each archive will go to separate folder.
21. "Extract archives to subfolders" option in the extraction dialog. It is available only when more than one archive is unpacked. It will place unpacked contents of each archive to separate subfolder, which name will be generated basing on the archive name.
22. When "Put each file in separate archive" option in the archiving dialog is enabled, WinRAR uses a text entered in the archive name field as the destination folder for created archives. Previous versions ignored the archive name in the "separate archives" mode.
23. CRC32 column is displayed inside of RAR, ZIP, ACE and ARJ archives. CRC32 is the special control sum calculated basing on file data and it may help to detect either two archived files are the same without unpacking them. Same files always have the same CRC32 value.
24. "Pause" button added to the operation progress window. Archiving progress window is now displaying time left instead of total estimated time.
25. It is possible to copy and paste archived and usual files in WinRAR with Ctrl+C and Ctrl+V keys. For example, you may select some files in archive, press Ctrl+C, open a folder in Explorer and press Ctrl+V to unpack selected files to that folder.
26. When you press "Up one level" toolbar button or Backspace in the disk root, WinRAR will display the disks list in the file panel.
27. "My Network Places" item is added to WinRAR address bar, so you may browse the network in WinRAR file list. The address bar also includes some other shell folders like "My Computer" and "My Documents".
28. Switch -ver tells RAR to keep old file versions in archive when adding their new versions. The corresponding WinRAR shell option is "Keep previous file versions" in "Backup" part of archiving dialog.
29. Switches -ta and -tb allow to add or extract files modified after or before the specified date. Date format is YYYYMMDDHHMMSS. It is allowed to insert separators like '-' or ':' to date string and omit trailing fields. For example, the following switch is correct: -ta2001-11-20.
30. "Backup" part of the archiving dialog provides two new file time selecting modes allowing to archive files modified before or after the specified date.
31. "Test archived files" WinRAR option and the command line switch -t allow to test files after archiving. This option is especially useful in combination with the move command, so files will be deleted only if archive had been successfully tested.
32. "Comment", "Protect", "SFX", "Lock" and "Extract" WinRAR commands can be also used outside of archives. Their buttons are disabled by default, but you may enable them in toolbar settings or use "Commands" menu. "Repair" command is also available inside of archives.
33. "Info" command now is available also outside of archives, when working with uncompressed files. One task of this command is getting information about selected files, another is performing miscellaneous operations with groups of archives. After the files scan step is completed, you may switch to other pages of the dialog and apply commands like "Comment" and "SFX" to all found RAR and ZIP archives. "Info" replaces "Estimate" command, which function is available as a part of the information dialog. Amount of estimation information is reduced, because an accuracy of Estimate results was not enough to provide reliable results for different compression methods.
34. Switch -ms allows to specify files, which will be stored without compression. For example, -msrar;zip;jpg. It helps to increase archiving speed without noticeable loss in the compression ratio. The same option is available in WinRAR shell through "Files to store without compression" field in the advanced part of the archiving dialog.
35. Using switch -mc you may set advanced compression parameters such as prediction order and memory size for the text compression algorithm. It is also possible in WinRAR shell using "Compression..." button in the "Advanced" part of archiving dialog.
36. Added support for ISO9660 (.iso) file format, which is widely used to store CD images. WinRAR is able to browse and unpack contents of ISO files. WinRAR also supports Joliet extension of ISO9660 and displays long file names inside of Joliet CD images.
37. Switch -hp can be used instead of -p to encrypt both file data and file headers, so such information as file names, sizes, comments will not be visible without a password. "Encrypt file names" option in the password dialog provides the same function in WinRAR shell.
38. SFX modules: a) Windows SFX modules now support archives larger than 4 GB and Unicode names; b) It is possible to replace the standard SFX icon with your own. Just specify the icon file name in "Load SFX icon from the file" field of "Advanced SFX options/Text and icon" dialog. c) new "Shortcut=DestType,SrcName,DestFolder,Description" SFX script command allows to create shortcuts to unpacked files on Desktop, Start Menu, Start Menu/Programs or Startup. This feature is also available through "Shortcuts" list in the "Advanced SFX options" WinRAR dialog; d) modified syntax of TempMode SFX script command. It now uses comma instead of '@' as a question and title separator. It is important only for those users, who write SFX script manually instead of specifying SFX parameters in WinRAR "Advanced SFX options" dialog; e) "Delete" SFX script command and "Files to delete" field in "Advanced SFX options" dialog may include wildcard masks. For example: Delete=*.tmp f) removed "Allow external signature" advanced SFX option and the corresponding "ExtSign" script command. RAR 3.0 archive format includes the end of archive marker, so SFX module automatically stops extraction when reaching the end of archive and all data appended to archive are ignored by default; g) if you specified INF file in SFX "Setup" command, SFX will attempt to install it instead of opening its contents in Notepad as in the previous version; h) the new DOS SFX module is 32-bit, so it is not limited to 64 KB dictionary more and can unpack any RAR 3.0 archives regardless of dictionary size; i) "SFX options" button in the archiving dialog opens directly "Advanced SFX options" without intermediate selection of SFX module. If you need to change SFX type, use "Module" page in the advanced SFX options. Please note that new SFX modules are able to unpack only RAR 3.0 archives. They must not be used with archives created by older RAR versions.
39. Added support of so called recovery volumes (.rev files), which can be used to reconstruct missing files in a volume set. One .rev file allows to reconstruct one missing RAR volume, for example, 5 .rev files are able to reconstruct any 5 volumes. In WinRAR you may create recovery volumes either specifying their number in the archiving dialog or using "Protect" command inside of the first volume. In the command line RAR it can be done by the command 'rv[n]' or switch -rv[n]. RAR and WinRAR automatically use .rev files to reconstruct missing volumes when unpacking or testing a volume set. It is also possible to double click on .rev file in WinRAR shell or use the command 'rc' in the command line to force reconstructing. I wish to thank developers of Mirror program, who invented this idea and proposed to implement it in WinRAR.
40. Default volume naming scheme is changed from volname.rar, volname.r00, ..., to volname.part001.rar, volname.part002.rar, etc. Switch -vn and "Old style volumes names" option in the archiving dialog allow to use the old extension based scheme.
41. WinRAR adds "Compress and email" item to Explorer context menu.
42. "Send archive by email" option in the "Files" part of archiving dialog. Your email program must support MAPI interface, otherwise this option will not work. In the command line mode you may use -ieml[.][addr] switch to send a created archive by email.
43. "Wizard" command helps novice users to perform basic archive operations in simple, step by step mode. Just click on Wizard button on the toolbar and choose an operation which you want to perform.
44. Francesco Indrio , has once again done a nice job redesigning WinRAR graphics.
45. Encryption algorithm is changed to AES (Advanced Encryption Standard) with 128 bit key length.
46. Compression algorithm improved. Changes include: a) dictionary size is increased to 4 MB, this helps to increase compression on large data sets; b) a special algorithm for text data, based on Dmitry Shkarin's PPMII sources: ftp://ftp.elf.stuba.sk/pub/pc/pack/ppmdh.rar We express our sincere gratitude and respect to Dmitry for his excellent PPMII; c) special preprocessing algorithms for 32-bit x86 executables, Itanium executables, true color data, audio data and tables. In many cases significantly increasing compression; d) now RAR chooses the best combination of algorithms automatically, so "Multimedia compression" mode and switch -mm are obsolete. By default, RAR uses only the general compression algorithm in the "Fast" and "Fastest" compression methods (-m1 and -m2), advanced algorithms such as audio and true color processing are enabled only in "Normal"..."Best" (-m3..-m5) modes, the advanced text compression is activated only in "Good" and "Best" compression (-m4..-m5). This default can be overridden using the -mc switch. RAR 3.0 archives can be unpacked by any RAR version beginning from RAR 2.9, currently it is 2.9 and 3.0. RAR 3.0 can unpack archives created by all older RAR versions.
47. We introduced WinRAR 3.0 discount program, so a single user license now is only $29. As always, already registered users do not need to pay again. RAR 1.x - 2.x registration is valid for 3.0 too. Also do not forget that we have a lot of regional sites processing RAR registrations. Complete list is available in rar_site.txt.

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