RAR - What's new in the latest version


   Version 2.71

   1. Corrected a few bugs including the following Windows 2000
      compatibility issues:

      a) "New" command of Explorer context menu created zero length
         archives, which cannot be opened by WinRAR;

      b) archiving a large number of files (more than 300-400)
         using context menu did not work.


   Version 2.70

   1. Both compression and speed have been improved for RAR archives.
      My thanks to Alexander Khoroshev, who, once again, provided
      invaluable assistance to improve this new version.

   2. In previous versions it was necessary to have external archivers
      to unpack CAB, ARJ and LZH files. These are now supported internally
      by WinRAR, you no longer need to have other programs to extract
      from these archives.

   3. Internal (extraction only) support has been added for TAR,
      GZ, ACE and UUE archives.

   4. RAR and WinRAR are now able to store NTFS data streams.
      It is especially important under Windows 2000, which uses
      streams to keep some file dependent information such as
      file descriptions.

      Use switch -os to enable the storing of streams from
      the command line or set the option "Save file streams"
      in the "Archive name and parameters" dialog.

      This feature is supported only for RAR archives.

   5. "Archive name and parameters" dialog has been split into four
      sections: general options, advanced options, backup options
      and archive comment. Now it is possible to set archive password
      or comment directly from this dialog.

   6. You may save compression options to compression profiles
      to quickly restore them later, so you may create profiles
      for your typical archiving operations. Read the topic
      "Compression profiles" in the "Configuration settings" chapter
      for detailed information.

   7. RAR and WinRAR are now able to store NTFS file owner, group, access
      control and audit information under Windows NT. Note: you need to
      have the necessary privileges in order to use this facility.
      Use switch -ow to enable the storing and extraction of this
      information from the command line or set the option "Save security
      data" in the "Archive name and parameters" dialog.

      This feature is supported for both RAR and ZIP archives.

   8. Large disk folders are now read significantly faster in WinRAR.

   9. Total progress bar is displayed when testing or extracting
      from a single RAR archive (except volumes) or group of archives.

  10. New command line switches -to<time> and -tn<time> allow to
      process files older or newer than specified time. This feature
      is also available in the "Backup options" of the "Archive name
      and parameters" dialog.

  11. New switch -ibck allows to run WinRAR minimzed to tray, when
      archiving or extracting files from the command line.

  12. Switch -rr and command RR are not limited to 8 recovery sectors.
      Now the recovery record may contain up to 4096 sectors.

      If the sectors number is not specified, the size of the recovery
      information is about 1.2% of the total archive size, this usually
      allows the recovery of up tp 0.7% of continuously damaged data 
      of the total archive size.

      Note that recovery records larger than 8 sectors cannot be used
      by previous RAR versions.

  13. "Convert to SFX" command is now supported also for ZIP archives
      which are already in SFX format. This can be useful, if you wish
      to replace a particular SFX module.

  14. "Open archive" item is added to "Files" menu.

  15. Folder time stamps are restored, when unpacking an archive
      under Windows NT.

  16. The default value of dictionary size is changed to 1024KB.

  17. It is possible to specify the path to put a repaired archive
      in WinRAR.

  18. Console RAR now supports wildcards in the archive name
      also in 'RR' command.

  19. New switch -idp for console RAR disables displaying of
      the percentage indicator. May be useful when redirecting RAR output
      to a file.


   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 Windows SFX and WinRAR installation package.
      It forces silent install mode skipping configuration dialog
      and using default settings.