

                RAR - What's new in the latest version


   Version 3.20 beta 2

   1. Now Explorer context menu contains "Convert" and "Test" items
      if at least one of selected files is archive. In the previous
      beta these items displayed only if all selected files were
      recognized as archives.

   2. Bugs fixed:

      a) if archive contained several files with the same name
         in different folders, the rename command processed all them
         instead of renaming only the specified file;

      b) -ts switch did not work properly in precision modes '2' and '3'.


   Version 3.20 beta 1

   1. Previous WinRAR and RAR versions stored only the file modification
      time and only in DOS FAT format with 2 seconds precision.
      While it was enough for FAT, modern file systems provide a higher
      precision. Now RAR format can preserve modification, creation and
      last access time with the precision up to 0.0000001 second.
      The following changes had been done to support this facility:

      a) new "Time" part of archiving dialog includes "File time to store"
         options controlling file time processing. Other time related
         options also had been moved from "Backup" to "Time" section;

      b) new "Advanced" part of extraction dialog contains "File time"
         options allowing to select time fields to restore;

      c) command line -ts<m,c,a> switch chooses time fields to process
         and precision of these fields;

      Time precision provided by ZIP format is not changed and equal
      to 2 seconds.

   2. Changes in the extraction dialog:

      a) extraction dialog has been split to "General" and "Advanced"
         parts;

      b) "Display files in Explorer" option in "General" part instructs
         WinRAR to open Explorer window and display contents of
         destination folder when extraction is done;

      c) "Save settings" button saves the current state of both parts
         ("General" and "Advanced"). Saved state will be used as
         the default when activating the dialog next time. WinRAR saves
         all options except the destination path;

      d) "Advanced" part includes "File time" options allowing to
         select time fields to restore;

      e) new "Set file security" option in "Advanced" part controls
         restoring of NTFS file security information. Previous versions
         always extracted this information.

   3. It is possible to rename files inside of RAR archives.
      It can be done either with "Rename file" command in "Commands"
      menu or in the context menu displaying on the right mouse click.
      In the command line mode you may use 'rn' command for this
      purpose.

   4. "Next volume" dialog allows to choose the disk or folder for
      a new volume. WinRAR displays this dialog when creating volumes
      on removable disks or if "Pause after each volume" option
      is switched on. Previous versions did not allow to modify
      the volume name here.

   5. "Test" and "Convert" commands can be applied to archives
      directly from Explorer context menu. By default these menu
      items are disabled, but you may enable them in WinRAR
      "Settings/Integration/Context menu items..." dialog.

   6. "Pause" item added to context menu displayed on the right mouse
      button click on WinRAR tray icon. So you may pause WinRAR minimized
      to tray and continue it without restoring WinRAR to normal window.

   7. If one of SFX volumes is missing, SFX archive displays
      "Next volume" dialog proposing to browse for required volume.

   8. WinRAR allows to resize the window containing results of "Find"
      command. It saves modified window dimensions and restores them
      when using "Find" next time.

   9. Toolbar:

      a) "Toolbars..." button in "Settings/General" activates the dialog
         allowing to turn on or off the main WinRAR toolbar, the additional
         small toolbar containing "Up one level" button and the address bar
         with path or archive information;

      b) buttons may have a variable width. So few large button titles
         in localized versions will not increase the total toolbar size
         too much like it happened before;

      c) if the width of buttons exceeds the width of toolbar,
         you may click on the small arrow at the right side of toolbar
         and choose hidden buttons from the menu.

  10. Console RAR 'lb' and 'vb' commands list contents of archive
      in the bare mode - file names without any additional information.

  11. WinRAR recognizes one more tar long file name extension
      designed to overcome 100 characters file name limit in tar archives.

  12. Gzip archives contained zero in the file time field are processed
      correctly. Previous versions could display random date values
      for such archives.

  13. Recovery volumes:

      a) when creating recovery volumes, the required disk space
         is preallocated in the beginning of operation. It helps to
         minimize the disk fragmentation;

      b) console RAR displays the operation percentage when creating
         recovery volumes or reconstructing missing or corrupt volumes.

  14. If "Save file security" option is enabled, folders will be
      archived after files which they contain. It is necessary to avoid
      the situation when security attributes of just unpacked folder
      do not allow to extract files to it.

  15. Optional description can be entered in "Add to favorite" dialog.
      If such description is available, WinRAR will display it
      in "Favorites" menu instead of folder or archive name.


   Version 3.11

   1. "Convert" command is able to process .tgz archives.

   2. GUI SFX modules provide more detailed diagnostic messages
      for CRC errors or file create errors.

   3. Command line RAR returns the exit code 9 in case of file
      create errors.

   4. Bugs fixed:

      a) "Convert" command failed to convert archives in folders
         with non-English (high ASCII) names;

      b) WinRAR could crash when attempting to display too long
         file type inside of archive;

      c) -ag command line switch placed an incorrect value to minutes
         field;

      d) options "Put each file to separate archive" and "Turn PC off
         when done", if set together, switched the computer off after
         creating the first archive;

      e) SFX module could display unnecessary "http-equiv ..." string
         when started under Windows 95.


   Version 3.10

   1. New "Find" command allows to search for text string in archives
      and usual files.

      Its command line equivalent is 'i' command.

   2. New "Convert" command converts archives from one format to other.
      It can process a single archive or several selected archives
      at once. It is possible to select file folders to convert their
      contents.

   3. Repair command:

      a) "Repair" is able to correct data erasure and insertion
         errors in RAR archives containing the recovery record.
         Earlier it was possible to fix only those errors, when
         an archive size was not changed;

      b) "Repair" uses fixed.arcname.rar and rebuilt.arcname.rar
         names for repaired archives, where 'arcname' is the name of
         original archive. Previous versions used _recover.rar
         and _reconst.rar names;

      c) It is possible to select several archives in WinRAR shell
         and repair them at once;

      d) 'R' command accepts wildcards in the archive name to repair
         several archives at once.

   4. Recovery volumes:

      a) WinRAR attempts to reconstruct both missing and damaged
         volumes. Original copies of damaged volumes are renamed
         to *.bad. Previous version was able to reconstruct only
         missing volumes;

      b) WinRAR automatically detects corrupt recovery volumes
         and ignores them;

      c) Recovery volumes naming scheme changed from <name>N1_N2_N3.rev
         to less complicated <name>N.rev, where 'N' is the number of
         volume. Old style recovery volumes are also recognized and
         supported;

      d) WinRAR displays the progress bar while reconstructing volumes.

   5. SFX modules:

      a) Start and License SFX dialogs had been redesigned;

      b) SFX provides fully functional HTML support in "Text" command.
         Earlier versions supported only very limited set of HTML tags;

      c) "SavePath" SFX script command and "Save and restore paths"
         option in "Advanced SFX settings" allow to save the destination
         path entered by user in Registry and then restore it when
         executing SFX archive next time.

   6. Compression improved when adding small text files to already
      existing archive using "Best" (-m5) or "Forced text" (-mct+) modes.

   7. "Flat folders view" command in "Options/File list" menu switches
      between the classic tree style view and flat view, when all archived
      files and folders are displayed in the same list.

   8. Option "Turn PC off when done" in "Advanced" part of archiving
      dialog and command line switch -ioff turn a computer off after
      completing an operation. Hardware must support the power off feature.

   9. Sizes of ZIP-100, CD-650MB and CD-700MB disks are added
      to predefined values in the volume size list in archiving dialog.

  10. New command line switch -iicon<name> specifies an icon to use
      in SFX archive created or updated by WinRAR. This switch is
      supported only by WinRAR, console RAR does not recognize it.

  11. Now WinRAR opens tar.gz and tar.bz2 archives in one step,
      so users do not need to unpack .tar manually.
      WinRAR does not store temporary .tar files on the disk,
      all required operations are performed directly in memory.

  12. WinRAR is able to decompress multipart ZIP archives
      (.zip, .z01, .z02, ...).

  13. New 'N' (archive number) modifier for -ag switch and
      "Generate archive name by mask" backup option of archiving dialog.

      WinRAR searches for already existing archive with a generated name
      and if it is found, increments the archive number until generating
      a unique name. For example, if you use -agyymmdd-nn several
      times in the same day, every new archive name will include a new
      increasing number.

  14. If rarfiles.lst contains such two masks that all files matched
      by one mask are also matched by other, that mask which matches
      a smaller subset of file names will have higher priority regardless
      of its position in the list. For example, in case of *.cpp and
      f*.cpp masks, f*.cpp has higher priority.

  15. WinRAR displays CRC16 column inside of LZH archives.

  16. It is possible to disable the main menu and settings dialog
      using "HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\WinRAR\Policy" or
      "HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\WinRAR\Policy" Registry key.
      This feature may help to preserve WinRAR settings in multiuser
      environment. Read "Configuration settings/Registry variables"
      topic in winrar.hlp for more details.
