Topic Title

For those of you interested Winrar 3.60 has been released.

From Winrar website: http://www.win-rar.com

RAR - What's new in the latest version
Version 3.60

1. Multithreaded version of RAR compression algorithm improves the compression speed on computers with several CPU, dual core CPU and processors with hyperthreading technology. Multithreading is enabled by default, but you can disable it in "General" part of "Settings" dialog.

In the command line mode you can control multithreading with -mt switch.

2. WinRAR can display the folder tree panel allowing to navigate in disk and archive folders. Use "Options/Folder tree" submenu to enable the folder tree. It can be configured separately in file and archive management modes.

Folder tree replaces "Browse for folder" command previously available in "File" menu and uses its Ctrl+T keyboard shortcut.

3. Now WinRAR "Rename" command also works with ZIP archives. Previous versions could rename files only in RAR archives.

4. Added decompression of LZH archives created with "-lh7-" algorithm.

5. New "Remove duplicate folders from extraction path" option in "Settings/Compression" dialog.

If this option is on and you unpack an archive which root folder has no files and only one 'somename' folder and if destination folder is new or empty and also ends with '/somename', WinRAR will exclude one 'somename' from resulting 'somename/somename' path.

6. New "Define volume sizes..." button in "Settings/Compression". This button activates "Define volume sizes" dialog. Here you can customize the list of predefined volume sizes associated with "Split to volumes, bytes" field in archiving dialog.

7. Speed of RAR general compression increased for some data types. Depending on data type and size the gain may achieve 5 - 15%.

8. New "Rename automatically" option in the extraction dialog and command line -or switch to rename extracted files automatically if file with the same name already exists. You can also enable the auto-renaming mode directly from the overwrite confirmation prompt with "Rename All" button.

Renamed files will get names like 'filename(N).txt', where 'filename.txt' is the original file name and 'N' is a number.

9. "Set modification time" option in "Advanced" part of extraction dialog is accessible also for ZIP archives. Previously it could be changed only for RAR archives.

10. "Multithreading" option added to "Benchmark and hardware test" command, so you can compare performance of usual and multithreaded versions of RAR compression algorithm.

11. New 'ch' (change archive parameters) command line mode command. Its purpose is to apply switches like -av, -tl and -cl to archive.

12. New 'cv' command line mode command. It provides the command line interface to WinRAR "Convert archives" command. It is supported only by winrar.exe, not by rar.exe.

13. New command line -sl and -sm switches to set size limits of processing files.

14. New command line -fcu[file] switch allows to read archive comments from Unicode files. It also modifies behavior of "cw" command, setting the comment output format to Unicode.

15. 7Z added to list of formats stored without compression when using -ms switch without a parameter.

16. Switch -e[+] is now supported by most of command line operations including extracting and deleting files. Previously it was supported by only archiving command.

17. It is allowed to use environment variables in archive name in archiving dialog, in destination path in extraction dialog, in folder names on "Compression" and "Paths" pages in WinRAR settings. For example, you can enter '%temp%' in "Folder for temporary files" field.

All fine and good, but these days, if you send anyone a .rar file they don't know what it is and ask for .zip. Only geeks use .rar and 99% of the people I send files to are not geeks.

I have WinRar on my machine only because I needed it once and now it defaults to .rar for compressed files, making it harder to get .zip. I'm probably going to remove it unless I can find a way to make it default to .zip.

Open Settings Dialog Box. Under Compress tab select "Create Default...". Set the Archive format to ZIP instead of RAR.

Only geeks use .rar and 99% of the people I send files to are not geeks.

Hey I resemble that remark! And I'd guess that the people you are sending files are in the closet geeks. We are all geeks. One big Star Wars lovin' geek family.

Hello,

What does Winrar do that 7-Zip doesn't also do?

I did a little comparison compressing my Datacad folder (207MB), here's the results I got.

Program / Format / Method / Compressed Size / Time / Memory Used
7Zip / .7z / Best / 115MB / 2:56 / 201MB
7Zip / .7z / Ultra / 114MB / 4:26 / 702MB
7Zip / .zip / Ultra / 140MB / 15:16 / 7MB
WinRAR / .rar / Good / 136MB / 2:14 / 38MB
WinRAR / .rar / Best / 136MB / 2:18 / 37MB
WinRAR / .zip / Best / 141MB/ 0:39 / 5MB

Looks like 7Zip has better compression, and WinRar is speedier and is not quite as hard on the system resources especially compared to the 7Zip Ultra mode, which ended up crashing explorer on my system. For freeware 7Zip looks like a good choice. For me WinRAR also has some advanced backup, self extraction options, which are not useful to everyone, but I use them a lot. I also like the more professional feel of WinRar vs. the GNU feel of 7Zip, but I'm picky. There are some other comparisons around. Google 7Zip vs. WinRAR for more. FWIW.

Hi Josh,

My DataCAD folder is 382MB

7-Zip/.7z/Ultra/160MB/5:09 and I don't remember how much RAM was used. I did have the MultiThreaded option turned on (dual cores!), and also "Create Solid archive was checked (whatever that is?).

In the 7-Zip File Manager, there is a Benchmark (with 2MB Dictionary size - whatever that is!): Total Rating 2,023 MIPS without multi-threading, and 2798 MIPS with Multi-threading!