WinRAR - What's new in the latest version


Version 6.20

1. If "Autodetect passwords" option in "Organizer passwords" dialog
is enabled and password matching a processing archive is present
among saved passwords, it is applied automatically. This option
is applicable only for archives in RAR 5.0 and ZIP formats,
which allow to verify the password validity quickly.

There is a minor chance of incorrect password detection
for ZIP archives if stored passwords do not include a proper one.
If encrypted ZIP archive extraction fails, you can try to disable
this option, repeat extraction and enter a valid password manually.

2. If extraction command involves only a part of files in RAR archive,
the additional archive analysis is performed when starting extraction.
It helps to properly unpack file references even if reference source
is not selected. It works for most of RAR archives except for volumes
on multiple removable media and archives containing a very large
number of references.

Also in some cases such analysis may help to optimize the amount
of processing data when extracting individual files from
semi-solid archives created with -s and -se switches.

3. "Save original archive name and time" option on "Options" page
of archiving dialog allows to save the original archive name
and creation time. If archive includes such saved name and time,
they are displayed on "Info" page of "Show information" command
and can be restored on "Options" page of same command.
Restoring involves renaming an archive to original name and setting
the saved time as the archive creation and modification time.

Switch -ams or just -am together with archive modification commands
can be used to save the archive name and time in the command line mode.
These saved parameters are displayed in header of "l" and "v" commands
output and can be restored with -amr switch combined with "ch" command,
such as "rar ch -amr arc.rar". If -amr is specified, "ch" ignores
other archive modification switches.

4. Faster RAR5 compression of poorly compressible data on modern CPUs
with 8 or more execution threads. This applies to all methods
except "Fastest", which performance remains the same.

5. "Repair" command efficiency is improved for shuffled data blocks
in recovery record protected RAR5 archives.

6. If file size has grown after archiving when creating non-solid
RAR volumes, such file is stored without compression regardless of
volume number, provided that file isn't split between volumes.
Previously it worked only for files in the first volume.

7. Added decompression of .zipx archives containing file references,
provided that both reference source and target are selected
and reference source precedes the target inside of archive.

Typically, if .zipx archive includes file references, it is necessary
to unpack the entire archive to extract references successfully.

8. Added decompression of .zst long range mode archives with dictionary
exceeding 128 MB. Previously it was possible to decompress them only
if dictionary was 128 MB or less.

9. If "Turn PC off", "Hibernate", "Sleep" or "Restart PC" archiving
options are enabled in WinRAR, a prompt to confirm or cancel
such power management action is displayed directly before starting it.
If no selection was made by user for 30 seconds, the proposed action
is confirmed and started automatically.

This prompt is also displayed for -ioff switch in WinRAR command line,
but not in console RAR command line.

10. Context menu in WinRAR file list provides "Open in internal viewer"
command for archive files. It can be helpful if you wish to view
the archive raw data in internal viewer. For example, to read
an email archive with UUE attachments included.

Usual "View" command always displays the archive contents.
If file is recognized as UUE archive, "View" would show UUE attachments.

11. Recovery record size is displayed on "Archive" page of file properties
invoked from Explorer context menu for archives in RAR5 format.
Previously there was only "Present" instead of exact size
for RAR5 archives.

12. When archiving from stdin with -si switch, RAR displays the current
amount of read bytes as the progress indicator.

13. If wrong password is specified when adding files to encrypted
solid RAR5 archive, a password will be requested again.
Previous versions cancelled archiving in this case.

14. If both options "Test archived files" and "Clear attribute "Archive"
after compressing" or their command line -t -ac equivalents are
enabled when archiving, "Archive" attribute will be cleared only
if test was completed successfully. Previously it was cleared even
when test reported errors.

15. NoDrives value containing the bit mask to hide drives can be now
read from "HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\WinRAR\Policy" Registry key,
which allows to include it to winrar.ini if necessary.
Its "Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies" locations
in HKEY_CURRENT_USER and HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE are also supported.

Previously only "Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies"
in HKEY_CURRENT_USER was recognized.

16. Bugs fixed:

a) archive modification commands could fail for some ZIP archives
with file comments;

b) fixed a memory leak when reading contents of .tar.bz2 archives;

c) if source and resulting archive format is the same, the archive
conversion command didn't set the original archive time
to a newly created archive even if "Original archive time" option
was selected in archiving parameters;

d) if "Merge volumes contents" option in "Settings/File list" was
turned on, the folder packed size in WinRAR file list could be
less than expected when browsing a multivolume archive contents.
It didn't include the packed size of file parts continuing from
previous volume into calculation;

e) even if "Set file security" extraction option was turned off
by default, extraction commands in Explorer context menu still
attempted to restore NTFS file security data;

f) WinRAR could read data beyond the end of buffer and crash
when unpacking files from specially crafted ZIP archive.
We are thankful to Bakker working with Trend Micro Zero Day
Initiative for letting us know about this bug.