RAR - What's new in the latest version


   Version 2.60

   1. Both compression and speed have been improved for RAR archives.
      My thanks to Alexander Khoroshev and Bulat Ziganshin for hints,
      which allowed me to achieve this.

   2. Information for registered users:

      WinRAR and Rar for Linux versions 2.60 and above are registered
      with a new, very secure, AV registration seal. The main advantage
      of this new authenticity verification code is a significant
      increase in the strength of the registration code and thus it's
      use as a means of identification of the origin of a sealed archive. 

      Unfortunately this also means that the old registration keyfiles
      will not operate with the latest versions of Rar-Linux and WinRAR
      and thus all keyfiles must be changed. This is a cost-free process
      to the registered user.

      Please read "Information for registered users of WinRAR 2.00 - 2.50"
      in "License and registration information" section of WinRAR help
      for detailed instructions on updating your keys.

   3. Item "Registration" is removed from "Options" menu.  In order to  
      register you need to put your key file into the WinRAR folder. 

   4. Previous RAR versions were not able to handle single files and 
      archives larger than 2 GB. This limitation does not exist any 
      more for RAR archives.  The new limitation is slightly more than 
      8,589,934,591 GB, that practically means "unlimited".  Note that 
      Win-95/98 file systems cannot handle files larger than 4 GB, you 
      need to use NTFS to work with such files. 

      This improvement is valid only for RAR archives, 4 GB limitation 
      for ZIP archives is not changed. 

   5. Significantly increased speed of scanning for large numbers of 
      files before archiving operations. Memory management also is 
      optimized, so now it is possible to handle hundreds of thousands, 
      or even millions of files.  WinRAR has been succesfully tested 
      with over million files. 

   6. Console RAR shows the total percentage of processed data when 
      archiving instead of the current file percentage as before. 

   7. The drive selection box is moved under toolbar buttons. You may drag 
      it to the old position at the top right corner, if you wish. "Up" 
      button is added before the disk selection box. 

   8. New options "Cascaded context menus" and "Icons in context menus" 
      in "Integration settings" dialog. 

   9. Registration information is displayed in "About" dialog. 

  10. New switch -df - "Delete files after archiving". Command
      "rar a -df" is equal to "rar m". 

  11. New switch -ag[format] - "Generate archive name using the
      current date". Appends string "YYYYMMDDHHMMSS" or specified
      by "format" parameter to an archive name when creating
      an archive. Useful for daily backups. 

  12. New switch -as - "Synchronize archive contents". If this switch 
      is used when archiving, those archived files which are not 
      present in the list of the currently added files, will be deleted 
      from the archive. It is convenient to use this switch in 
      combination with -u (update) to synchronize the contents of an 
      archive and an archiving directory. For example, after the 
      command: 

      rar a -u -as backup sources\*.cpp

      the archive 'backup' will contain only *.cpp files from sources 
      folder. It looks similar to creating a new archive, but with the 
      one important exception - if no files are modified since a last 
      backup, this operation is performed much faster than creation of 
      new archive. 

  13. New update mode "Synchronize archive contents" in "Archive name 
      and parameters" dialog of WinRAR allows to synchronize the 
      contents of an archive and an archiving directory. This mode is 
      GUI equivalent of "-u -as" switches. The result of this operation 
      is equal to creation of a new archive, but it works much faster 
      if no files are changed since the last update of an archive. 

  14. Archives UnpSFX.rar (uncompressed SFX modules), UnRARDLL.rar 
      (unrar.dll library), UnrarSrc.rar (unrar sources) are removed 
      from the distributive. You can download them separately from 
      http://www.rarsoft.com.  This is to reduce size of the WinRAR
      package. 

  15. New GUI SFX script commands:

      a) "Overwrite=2" - skip all existing files without overwriting; 

      b) Delete=<file> - delete the specified file in the destination 
      folder. 

  16. Command "Convert to SFX" now can be applied to an existing SFX 
      archives to replace one SFX module with another. 

  17. In the "Archive name and parameters" dialog manually entered 
      values of the volume size now are stored in the history of the 
      volume size field together with predefined values. 

  18. "Add" button added to the "Organize favorites" dialog. 

  19. "Clear log" command in "Options" menu deletes rar.log file. 

  20. Minor improvements in displaying of archived files list by 
      WinRAR: 

      a) if a file is encrypted, its name is followed by 
         an asterisk;

      b) if a file is continued in next volume, its name
         is followed by "-->";

      c) if a file is continued from a previous volume, its name
         is followed by "<--";

      c) if a file is continued both in a next and from a previous
         volume, its name is followed by "<->".

  21. "Sort by original order" and "Create new folder" items
      in the file list context menu.

  22. Switch -s added to Widnows SFX and WinRAR installation package.
      It forces silent install mode skipping configuration dialog
      and using default settings.


   Version 2.50

   1. Both packing speed and compression ratio have been improved.

   2. WinRAR is now able to process ZIP archives without calling
      external programs.  Supported operations for ZIP archives:

      - extracting;
      - testing;
      - creating and updating;
      - deleting;
      - repairing;
      - commenting;
      - converting to SFX (self-extracting) archive;

      To handle ZIP archives, WinRAR incorporates compression code by 
      the Info-ZIP group, which is used with their permission. There 
      are no extra charges or costs due to the use of this code, and 
      the original compression sources are freely available from 
      ftp://ftp.cdrom.com/pub/infozip/ 

      Note that ZIP archives are supported only by the GUI WinRAR.EXE 
      Console RAR.EXE and UNRAR.EXE are able to process only RAR 
      archives. 

   3. New options in "Add" dialog:

      a) "Archive format":

         Allows format selection (RAR or ZIP) of new archive. 
         Read online help for detailed formats consideration;

      b) "Erase destination disk contents before archiving":

         Delete all files and folders from the destination disk 
         before creating an archive. Works only with removable disks
         and if used when creating volumes, erasing will be performed
         before the creation of each volume;

      c) "Add only files with attribute "Archive" set":

         Add only those files, which have the "Archive" attribute
         set on.  Useful for backup operations;

      d) "Clear attribute "Archive" after compressing"

         Clear the "Archive" attribute on compressed files.
         Useful for backup operations.

   4. Changes in "View" command:

      a) Size of viewed file in the internal viewer now is limited
         only by the amount of available memory. Previous limitation
         is removed;

      b) It is possible to change the default viewer font using
         command "Set font" in "View" menu of viewer window.

   5. Changes in "Delete" command:

      a) Usual (non-archived) files now deleted to the Recycle Bin.
         Press Shift-Del instead of Del, if you wish to delete files
         as before;

      b) "Delete" command now can delete non-empty folders.

   6. New "Estimate" command allows to roughly and quickly estimate 
      compression ratio of selected files and folders. Do not wait to 
      get an exact result from this command, nevertheless it can show 
      is it worth to spend time to compress selected data. 

   7. "Extract" and "Test" commands now are accessible also outside of 
      archives. If you select a group of files and folders and use one 
      of these commands, WinRAR will search for archives in the 
      selected data to process all archives which are found. It makes 
      archive group operations much simpler.  For example, if you 
      select all files and folders in a root disk folder and press 
      "Test", all archives on this disk will be tested. 

   8. Changes in "Extract to" command:

      a) "Update mode" option;

      b) "Overwrite mode" option;

      c) "Clear attribute "Archive"" option;

         Clear attribute "Archive" on extracted files.
         Useful for backup operations.

      d) "Keep broken files"

         Do not delete extracted files having incorrect CRC (checksum);

   9. Changes in "SFX" command: this command now allows to select the
      SFX module used for archive conversion.

  10. Changes in "Info" command:

      a) RAR specific options now moved to a separate property sheet
         dialog;

      b) Size of SFX module is displayed in addition to "SFX" string
         in archive type.

  11. "Browse for folder" command in "File menu" allows the selection 
      of a new current folder from folders tree. 

  12. "History" menu contains the names of the last opened archives. 
      You may select an archive from this menu to open the archive 
      again. 

  13. "Favorites" menu contains the names of the preselected folders 
      and archives. You may select an item from this menu to open the 
      archive or go to the folder. Use "Add to favorites" command 
      (Ctrl-F) from the same menu to add a new item to the favorites 
      list. 

  14. "Settings" dialog is seriously modified. Read online help for 
      details. Most important changes: 

      - General/Interface/Reuse existing window:

        If user tries to open a new archive, executing "WinRAR 
        <arcname>" command and an another WinRAR window is already 
        open, the archive will be opened in the existing window. If 
        this option is not enabled, a new window will be created; 

      - Paths/Start-up/Restore last working folder on start-up:

        If this option is enabled, WinRAR will set last viewed folder,
        when executed without parameters;

      - Compression/Archive format:

        Select the archive format (RAR or ZIP) proposed by default
        in "Add" dialog.

      - Compression/Volume options/Always put recovery record:

        Always put recovery record to volumes regardless of
        "Put recovery record" option in "Add" dialog;

      - Compression/Volume options/Independent solid volumes:

        When this option is enabled, WinRAR tries to create solid 
        volumes which are independent one each another, so if one 
        volume is lost, files in following volumes may  still be 
        accessible. Note than sometimes this option cannot help, for 
        example, if volumes contain one large file. This option 
        slightly decreases solid volumes compression ratio, but 
        seriously increases reliability due to data loss because of 
        poor media quality.  It is not recommended to switch off 
        this option. 

  15. "View log" command in "Options" menu show RAR log file contents;

  16. It is now possible to integrate WinRAR to Windows shell.
      If you selected "Integrate WinRAR into shell" option
      when installing WinRAR, the following features are available
      in Windows shell (explorer):

      a) dropping files to an archive icon will add these files
         to the archive;

      b) if you drop an archive to a folder using the right mouse 
         button, "Extract files" item will be added to the  menu; 

      c) "Extract files" item added to archives context menu,
         which appeared after the right mouse button click on an 
         archive icon;

      d) "Add to archive" item added to files and folders context
         menu;

      e) Archive specific information sheet is added to archive
         properties. If an archive has a comment, it is shown
         as a property sheet.

  17. You may press the "Background" button in command window during 
      archiving or extracting operation to minimize WinRAR to tray.
      In this mode WinRAR slightly decreases its priority and continues
      operation in the background. 

  18. Yellow progress bar, showing total compressed size, displayed
      during archiving operation.

  19. "Drives" menu is moved from toolbar to a small icon on the 
      status bar. It is also acessible using Ctrl-D shortcut.

      The second status bar icon calls "Enter default password" dialog.

  20. CRC of packed data is now stored for file parts split between 
      volumes. It allows localization of a damaged volume, if volumes 
      set contains one large compressed file. 

  21. New command line switches:

      a) -sv - create independent solid volumes. This switch has
         the same meaning as the option "Independent solid volumes"
         described above;

      b) -ac (clear "Archive" attribute) now can be used not only
         when archiving, but also when extracting files to clear
         "Archive" attribute on extracted files;

      c) -ap<path> - set path inside archive. It allows to add files
         to a specified archive folder when archiving or to remove
         the specified part of path from file names when extracting;

      d) -dh - open shared files. Enables to process files opened
         by other applications for writing;

      e) -- switch stops further switches scanning. It can be useful,
         if you need to use in the command line a file or archive name
         beginning with '-' character.

  22. Command "CW" (write comment to file) can now be performed also 
      by GUI WinRAR. In previous versions it was supported only by 
      console RAR. 

  23. Significantly improved speed of processing large file lists.

  24. If in WinRAR you press Enter or double-click on an executable 
      file within an archive, all archive contents will be extracted 
      to a temporary folder, WinRAR will then start the selected file, 
      wait until it is finished and removes this temporary folder. 
      Such feature allows, for example, to install applications 
      directly from archives. 

  25. DOS version of RCVT archive converter is replaced by
      Win32 console version.

  26. Some unnecessary code is removed from SFX modules,
      so their size was significantly reduced. For further size
      decrease SFX modules were compressed using UPX tool
      written by Markus F.X.J. Oberhumer and Laszlo Molnar
      (http://wildsau.idv.uni-linz.ac.at/mfx/upx.html).

      Uncompressed versions of SFX modules are also provided
      in the archive UnpSFX.rar. They can be useful, if you want to 
      modify SFX resources. 

      In Default.SFX (RAR GUI SFX) and Zip.SFX (ZIP GUI SFX)
      it is possible to set some additional parameters, for example,
      specify file name, which will be executed after extracting
      SFX contents. Look into "Self-extracting modules" topic of
      winrar.hlp for details.

  27. Comparing with the previous version some files were added to 
      the distributive, some removed, so as to reduce the amount of 
      unnecessary files in WinRAR folder it is a good idea to first 
      uninstall any previous version and than install the new one. Do 
      not forget to save your registration name and key from your 
      rar.ini before doing this, if you do not have a copy of this 
      information elsewhere. 

      But note that WinRAR version for Windows 3.x + Win32s
      is no longer supported.  So if you need to use WinRAR under
      this platform, save winrar.exe from the previous version.

  28. WinRAR home page is moved to http://www.rarsoft.com