Post Description

WinRAR - What's new in the latest version


   Version 5.50 beta 1

   1. WinRAR and command line RAR use RAR 5.0 archive format by default.
      You can change it to RAR 4.x compatible format with "RAR4" option
      in archiving dialog or -ma4 command line switch.
      
      If you prefer RAR 4.x format by default, use "Create default..."
      button on "Compression" page of WinRAR settings and set "RAR4"
      in the displayed dialog.
   
   2. Use "Set master password" button in "Organize passwords" dialog
      to encrypt saved password records and protect them from unauthorized
      access. 
      
      If saved passwords are protected with master password, you need to
      enter the master password and press "OK" in password prompt to access
      them. If entered password does not match the master password,
      it is treated as a usual password for archive operations.

      Once entered, the master password is valid until WinRAR is closed.
      Close WinRAR and open it again after specifying the master password
      if you wish to see how protection works. Enter a valid and then
      empty master password to remove encryption from previously protected
      password records.

      This WinRAR version uses a new data format for password organizer,
      so passwords stored in "Organize passwords" dialog are not readable
      by older versions. It does not affect archive encryption formats
      and encrypted archives are compatible with previous WinRAR version.
      Organizer data is converted to a new format only when you save it
      and not immediately after installing WinRAR.

   3. Prompt proposing to set the master password is displayed
      when storing a password in compression profile. You can enter
      the master password to encrypt password data stored in Registry
      and protect it from unauthorized access. You will need to enter
      the master password in password prompt dialog to access
      such compression profile after that.

      Once entered, the master password is valid until WinRAR is closed.
      Close WinRAR and open it again after specifying the master password
      if you wish to see how protection works.

   4. By default, WinRAR uses AES-256 in CTR mode to encrypt ZIP archives.
      While AES-256 is significantly more secure than ZIP 2.0 legacy
      encryption algorithm, it can be incompatible with some older
      unzip software. If compatibility with such tools is required,
      you can enable "ZIP legacy encryption" option in the password
      dialog or use -mezl switch in the command line mode. 
   
   5. Added extraction support for .LZ archives created by Lzip compressor.
   
   6. Modern TAR tools can store high precision file times, lengthy
      file names and large file sizes in special PAX extended headers
      inside of TAR archive. Now WinRAR supports such PAX headers
      and uses them when extracting TAR archives.

   7. New "Store modification time" option on "Time" page of archiving
      dialog can be used to prohibit storing the file modification time
      in RAR 5.x archives. Former "High precision modification time"
      option is replaced by "High precision time format".

   8. New "Full paths in title bar" option in "Settings/General" dialog.
      If enabled, the full path of currently opened folder or archive
      is displayed in WinRAR title bar.

   9. New "Settings/Archives" page provides "File types to open as
      archives first" group of options. Here you can define how Enter
      or double click on a file with non-archive extension and archive
      contents should be processed in WinRAR file list. Examples
      of such files are .docx or self-extracting .exe archives.
      You can instruct WinRAR to open such files as archives,
      to run them, to handle them similarly or differently inside
      and outside of archives, to never run specified file types
      even if they do not include any archived contents.

      Default settings are to open self-extracting exe and to run
      other types of archives with non-archive extension.

      Regardless of these options, you can always open any such 
      archive file by pressing Ctrl+PgDn on its name in WinRAR file list.

  10. New "Copy full names to clipboard" command in "File" menu
      places full names of selected files to clipboard.

      This command is also added to context menu displayed
      when right clicking the file list in WinRAR. Several other commands,
      which are also present on the toolbar or in main menu,
      such as "View" and "Repair", are removed from this context menu.

  11. LZ and ZIPX are added to list of associations in Settings/Integration
      dialog.

  12. LZ and ZIPX extensions are added to default list of formats for
      -ms switch ("Specify file types to store") invoked without parameters.

  13. You can specify 'f' charset value in -sc switch to use UTF-8
      encoding. For example:

      rar a -scfl arcname @filelist.txt

      to read contents of filelist.txt as UTF-8 text.

  14. RAR "lt" and "vt" commands display file times with nanosecond
      precision. Such precision is used in RAR5 archives created
      by RAR/Unix 5.50 and newer. Archives created by WinRAR have 100ns
      file time precision.

  15. Only '+', '-' and '1' precision modifiers are supported
      in -ts switch now. Use '+' to store the file time with maximum
      precision, '-' to omit the file time and '1' to store it with
      1 second precision. Intermediate precision modes previously
      defined with '2' and '3' modifiers are not available in RAR 5.0
      archive format and ignored by -ts switch.

  16. If a wrong password is entered when unpacking an encrypted file
      in RAR5 archive, WinRAR proposes to enter a valid password
      for same file again instead of aborting extraction.
   
  17. File path information is displayed if mouse pointer is placed over
      a name of archiving file in the operation progress window.

  18. Name of currently active compression profile is displayed
      in the archiving dialog above "Profiles..." button.

  19. If "Find" command is invoked from inside of archive subfolder,
      "File names to find" will include the path to this subfolder.
      So "Find" will search only starting from this subfolder.

  20. Bugs fixed:
   
      a) WinRAR failed to unpack files in ZIP archives compressed
         with XZ algorithm and encrypted with AES;
      
      b) if "Windows progress bars" option in WinRAR settings was turned off
         and "Put each file to separate archive" archiving mode was used,
         "gold" part of total progress bar did not display the compressed
         data ratio correctly;

      c) SFX archive extraction progress was incorrect in case of
         multivolume SFX archive with total volume size exceeding 4 GB;

      d) if archived folder name included trailing spaces, if user
         selected and extracted some folders in non-root archive folder
         and if "Allow potentially incompatible names" extraction option
         was turned off, WinRAR could lose one or more leading characters
         in extracted folder name;

      e) if only creation or only last access file time was stored in RAR5
         archive with 1 second precision, such as with -ma5 -tsm- -tsa1
         switches, this stored time was ignored when extracting.