Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Version 5.11
1. WinRAR can unpack TAR archives containing folders with pax
extended headers. Previous versions failed to unpack them.
2. "Keep broken files" extraction option is supported for 7-Zip archives.
3. Bugs fixed:
a) WinRAR 5.10 did not set "hidden", "read-only" and "system"
file attributes when unpacking ZIP archives;
b) WinRAR 5.10 failed to update self-extracting RAR archives
containing nested ZIP archives stored without compression;
c) ZIP archive created with "Do not store paths" option
included unnecessary empty name records for folders;
d) archived files could have 1 hour modification time error
in Windows XP;
e) deleting a file in RAR5 solid archive containing files stored
with -ver switch caused such files to lose version information;
f) black rectangles were displayed instead of toolbar buttons
in 16- and 24- bit screen color modes and Windows custom text size
larger than 100%.
Version 5.10
1. Added extraction support for ZIP and ZIPX archives using
BZIP2, LZMA and PPMd compression.
2. Added extraction support for 7z split archives
(.7z.001, .7z.002, ...).
3. Added support for AES-NI CPU instructions allowing to improve
RAR encryption and decryption performance.
4. Default theme images are scaled up with better quality
in high DPI display mode.
5. Environment variables, such as %temp%, can be used
in "Files to add" field of archiving dialog.
6. Switch -ai can be used when creating RAR archive,
so predefined values, typical for file and folder,
are stored instead of actual attributes.
Previously this switch could be used only when extracting.
Version 5.01
1. RAR 5.0 archives can include an optional quick open information
controlled with -qo[-|+] switch or "Quick open information" options
group in archiving dialog. It allows to open the archive contents
in WinRAR faster.
This version provides better update performance for archives
containing both quick open information and service records,
such as NTFS file security. Also default parameters of quick open
information are optimized to achieve faster open time for such archives.
2. Bugs fixed:
a) "Find" command could fail when searching text string in .7z archives;
b) when opening RAR 5.0 archive with encrypted file names stored
in another such archive, WinRAR could issue an erroneous message
that password is incorrect. It happened only if passwords to inner
and outer archives were different. It did not affect extraction,
all files could be unpacked regardless of this message;
c) option "Use for all archives" in password dialog did not suppress
additional password requests for RAR 5.0 archives with encrypted
file names;
d) WinRAR address bar did not process correctly environment variable
based paths, such as %temp%;
e) storing NTFS file security and alternate data streams did not work
for file pathnames longer than 260 characters;
f) "Test" command could erroneously report damaged data in valid
recovery record if only a part of files in RAR 5.0 archive
was tested. It did not happen if entire archive contents was tested;
g) "Test" command erroneously reported errors when verifying
RAR 4.x Unix symbolic links;
h) WinRAR "View" command did not work for files inside of BZIP2 archives;
i) if "High precision modification time" option in archiving dialog
was turned off, WinRAR did not store the modification time at all
instead of storing a lower precision time;
j) destination paths containing .\ or ..\ component did not work
when extracting non-RAR archives in WinRAR command line mode;
k) WinRAR failed to unpack multivolume CAB archives.
Version 5.00
1. New RAR 5.0 archiving format. You can use "RAR 5.0" option
in archiving dialog or -ma command line switch to create
RAR 5.0 archives.
Older software including older WinRAR versions is not able to
decompress RAR 5.0 archives, so if you plan to send an archive
to other people, it is necessary to take the compatibility issue
into consideration. You can select "RAR" instead of "RAR5" option
in archiving dialog to create RAR 4.x archives compatible with
previous WinRAR versions.
2. Changes in RAR 5.0 compression algorithm:
Note, though, that "Repair" command does not fix broken blocks
in recovery record. Only file data are corrected. After successful
archive repair, you may need to create a new recovery record
for saved files.
New recovery record is not based on 512 byte sectors anymore
and incorporates more complicated data structures. So it is impossible
to specify its size in sectors. For RAR 5.0 archives the parameter of
-rr[N] switch and rr[N] command is always treated as a percent of
archive size regardless of presence of % character. Typically N%
recovery record can repair up to N% of continuously damaged data
and increases the archive size by only slightly more than N%.
Ability to fix multiple damages is proportional to N.
We used "Screaming Fast Galois Field Arithmetic Using Intel
SIMD Instructions" paper by James S. Plank, Kevin M. Greenan
and Ethan L. Miller to improve Reed-Solomon coding performance.
Also we are grateful to Artem Drobanov and Bulat Ziganshin
for samples and ideas allowed to make Reed-Solomon coding
more efficient.
5. "Test" command verifies validity of RAR 5.0 recovery record.
Recovery record is tested after processing all archived files.
If corrupt archive contains the recovery record, it might be possible
to repair it even if recovery record validity test is failed.
"Repair" command attempts to utilize even a partially damaged
recovery record. So treat the negative recovery record test result
as a reason to re-create the archive if original files are still
available, but not as a reason to avoid "Repair" command.
6. Changes in RAR 5.0 encryption algorithm:
a) encryption algorithm is changed from AES-128 to AES-256 in CBC mode.
Key derivation function is based on PBKDF2 using HMAC-SHA256;
b) special password verification value allows to detect most of
wrong passwords without necessity to unpack the entire file;
c) if archive headers are not encrypted ("Encrypt file names" option
is off), file checksums for encrypted RAR 5.0 files are modified
using a special password dependent algorithm, to make impossible
guessing file contents based on checksums. Do not expect such
encrypted file checksums to match usual CRC32 and BLAKE2 values.
7. RAR 5.0 archives allow to utilize 256 bit length BLAKE2sp hash
( https://blake2.net ) instead of 32 bit CRC32 as a file checksum.
Enable "Use BLAKE2 file checksum" option in "Options" page of
archiving dialog or specify -htb command line switch to use BLAKE2
checksums.
While producing slightly larger archives, BLAKE2 can be used
for file contents identification. If two files have the same
BLAKE2 value, it practically guarantees that file contents
is the same. BLAKE2 error detection property is also stronger
than in much shorter CRC32.
8. Features removed:
a) authenticity verification feature did not provide the required
Both the general RAR algorithm and most of special RAR multimedia
methods benefit from this improvement. The only module of RAR
algorithm, which is not affected, is "Text compression" method.
2. Changes in ISO support:
a) UDF support is upgraded to UDF 2.50 revision. It makes possible
to unpack most of Blu-ray ISO files;
b) when browsing UDF ISO file, UDF revision number is displayed
after the "UDF" format name in WinRAR address bar
and in archive information dialog;
c) WinRAR sets the folder modification date when unpacking folders
stored in UDF and ISO9660 files.
3. Changes in password dialog:
a) WinRAR uses the same format of password dialog both when archiving
and extracting, so "Show password" option is available also
when extracting;
b) "Organize passwords..." button in password dialog provides
access to password organizer interface, where you can specify
your frequently used passwords. You will be able to access these
saved passwords using the drop down list or autocomplete feature
in password dialog.
It is important to know that saved passwords are not encrypted
and anybody having access to your computer can view them.
Use "Organize passwords" feature only if your computer is
protected from unauthorized access;
c) "Use for all archives" option is available in password dialog
when unpacking several archives at once. You can utilize it
to apply an entered password to all archives.
If you use this option with an empty password, WinRAR will skip
all encrypted archives;
d) Unlike previous versions, the password from default compression
profile is not used for extraction.
If you wish to use the same password for all extracting archives,
press "Organize passwords..." button in the password dialog
and define a new password entry, specifying "*" file mask
in "Select for archives" field.
4. In Windows 7 WinRAR will display the total operation progress
also on WinRAR icon on Windows taskbar. You can disable it using
"Taskbar progress bar" option on "General" page of WinRAR settings.
5. Numerous Unicode support improvements allow to process non-English
file names more smoothly. These improvements include:
a) better Unicode handling in WinRAR in "Rename", "Convert",
"Find" and other commands, in folder tree panel, in password
request dialog and in many other parts of WinRAR interface;