Editing WinRAR (section)

==History==

===Versions===
* Command line RAR and UNRAR were first released in autumn 1993.<ref name="Interview by correspondence"/>
* Early development version WinRAR 1.54b was released in 1995.
* 3.00 (2002–05): the new [[RAR (file format)#Versions|RAR3]] [[archive format]] is implemented. The new archives cannot be managed by older versions of WinRAR. Solid compression and WAV audio lossless compression features are added.<ref name="History-3.00-3.11">{{cite web |title=RAR - What's new in the latest version (v3.00 to v3.11) |url=http://www.rarlab.com/rarnew.htm |website=rarlab.com |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20030117103514/http://www.rarlab.com/rarnew.htm |archive-date=January 17, 2003 |url-status=dead}}</ref>
* 3.41 (2004–12): adds support for Linux .Z archives like GZIP and BZIP2. New options include storing entire file paths and restoring compressed NTFS files.<ref name="History-3.40-3.50"/>
* 3.50 (2005–08): adds support for interface [[Skin (computing)|skins]].<ref name="History-3.40-3.50">{{cite web |title=RAR - What's new in the latest version (v3.40 to v3.50) |url=http://www.rarlab.com/rarnew.htm |website=rarlab.com |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20050907103300/http://www.rarlab.com/rarnew.htm |archive-date=September 7, 2005 |url-status=dead}}</ref>
* 3.60 (2006–08): adds multithreaded version of the compression algorithm, which improves compression speed on systems with multiple [[dual-core]] or [[hyper-threading]]-enabled [[central processing unit|CPUs]].
* 3.80 (2008–09): adds support for ZIP archives, which contain [[Unicode]] file names in [[UTF-8]].<ref>{{cite web |url=https://rarlab.com/ |title=WinRAR archiver, a powerful tool to process RAR and ZIP files |publisher=RARLAB |website=rarlab.com |access-date=2009-07-01 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090628105748/http://www.rarlab.com/ |archive-date=2009-06-28 |url-status=live }}</ref>
* 3.90 (2009–05): adds support for the [[x86-64]] architecture. Multithreaded support is enhanced.<ref name="releases" />
* 3.91 is the last release that supports [[Valencian language|Valencian]].
* 3.92 is the last release that supports [[Serbian Cyrillic]] and [[Serbian Latin]].
* 4.00 (2011–03): decompression is sped up by up to 30%.<ref name="releases" />
* 4.10 (2012–01): removes all ZIP limitations now allowing unlimited number of files and archive size. WinRAR now also allows creation of multivolume ZIP files. ZIP archives now include [[Unicode]] file names.<ref name="releases" />
* 4.20 (2012–06): compression speed in [[Symmetric multiprocessing|SMP]] mode is increased significantly, but this improvement was made at the expense of increased memory usage. ZIP compression now uses SMP as well. The default SMP mode cannot handle text; text compression is significantly worse unless additional switches are used.<ref name="releases" />
* 5.00 (2013–09): the RAR5 archive format is implemented. RAR5 compressed archives cannot be managed by old versions of WinRAR. The RAR 5 format improves [[multi-core processor]] utilization, and adds a larger dictionary size of up to 1 GiB with 64-bit WinRAR. Special optional compression algorithms optimized for RGB bitmaps, raw audio files, [[Itanium]] executables, and [[plain text]], which were supported by earlier versions, are supported only in the older RAR format, not RAR5.<ref name="releases" /> Optional optimized compression of x86 executables and [[delta compression]] (for structured table data) are supported in both file formats.
* 5.50 (2017–08): adds support for a master password which can be used to encrypt passwords stored in WinRAR. The default RAR format is changed to version 5. Adds support for decompressing [[Lzip]] archives; adds support for high precision file dates, longer file names and larger file sizes for [[Tar (computing)|TAR]] archives.<ref name="releases" />
* 5.60 (2018–06): repairing of protected RAR5 archives was improved. Automatic detection of the encoding of ZIP archive comments. Recognition of GZIP files with arbitrary preceding data as an actual GZIP archive.<ref name="releases" />
* 5.70 (2019–02): removes support for [[ACE (compressed file format)|ACE]] archive decompression due to major security vulnerabilities<ref>{{Cite web |url=https://www.theregister.co.uk/2019/02/20/winrar_security_bug/ |title=Behold… a WinRAR security bug that's older than your child's favorite YouTuber. And yes, you should patch this hole |first=Shaun |last=Nichols |date=2019-02-20 |website=www.theregister.co.uk |access-date=2019-02-26}}</ref> in the unacev2.dll library.<ref name="releases" />
* 6.00 (2020–12): "Ignore" and "Ignore All" options are added to read error prompt. "Ignore" allows to continue processing with already read file part only and "Ignore All" does it for all future read errors.
* 6.10 (2022–01): Added support for unpacking [[Zstandard|ZST]] archives. Maximum recovery record is increased to 1000% of protected data size.
* 6.11 (2022–03): Support of Gzip archives with large archive comments has been added; In command line mode, the switch -mes can also be used to suppress the password prompt and abort when adding new files to an encrypted solid archive.
* 6.12 (2022–05): {{CVE|2022-30333}} security vulnerability is fixed in Unix RAR versions. WinRAR and Android RAR are not affected.
* 6.23 (2023–08): {{CVE|2023-40477}} and {{CVE|2023-38831}} critical security vulnerabilities are fixed in WinRAR. Unix and Android versions are not affected.
* 6.24 (2023–10): Fixes an issue with null pointers.
* 7.00 (2024–02): drops support for creating RAR 4.x format archives. Maximum path length limit increased to 65535 characters. Maximum RAR dictionary size up to 64 GB for the [[64-bit computing|64]]-bit version (limited by available RAM). Command line RAR filters out control character 27 from screen output for security reasons.
* 7.10 (2025–02): drops support for 32bit Windows editions. Adds support for [[Page (computer memory)#Multiple page sizes|Large Memory Pages]] which increases compression and decompression speed, especially when using a large compression dictionary. Adds [[Dark theme|dark mode]].

===Operating systems support===
More recent versions do not support many older operating systems. Versions supporting older operating systems may still be available, but not maintained:
* RAR 2.50 is the last version to support MS-DOS and OS/2 on 16-bit [[x86]] CPUs ([[Intel 8086|8086]]-compatible).<ref>{{cite web |url=https://winworldpc.com/product/rar |title=RAR 2.50 – Stats, Downloads and Screenshots |website=WinWorld |access-date=14 August 2017 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170815101512/https://winworldpc.com/product/rar |archive-date=2017-08-15 |url-status=live }}</ref>
* RAR 3.93 is the last version to support [[MS-DOS]] and [[OS/2]] on [[IA-32]] CPUs ([[Intel 80386|80386]] equivalents and later). RAR for Pocket PC 3.93 is the last version for [[Windows Mobile]].<ref name=rar393>{{cite web |url=http://www.winrar.co.nz/download-winrar |title=Downloads for: WinRAR, RAR for Mac OS X, RAR for Linux, RAR for DOS & OS/2, RAR for FreeBSD, with 40 days free trial |website=Winrar.co.nz |access-date=15 August 2017 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170815101538/http://www.winrar.co.nz/download-winrar |archive-date=2017-08-15 |url-status=live }}</ref> It supports [[Long filename|file names longer than the MS-DOS standard]] of 8.3 characters, in a MS-DOS box (except under NT-based operating systems), and uses the [[EMX (programming environment)|RSX]] [[DOS Protected Mode Interface|DPMI]] extender.
* RAR 7.01 is the last version to support [[Linux]] and [[FreeBSD]] on [[32-bit computing|32-bit]] [[x86]] CPUs. The unrar application is available as source code and still supports 32bit environments (with a 2GB maximum dictionary size limitation).
* WinRAR 2.06 is the last version to support [[Windows 3.1]], [[Windows NT 3.1]], [[Windows NT 3.5]], [[Windows NT 3.51]] and [[Win32s]].
* WinRAR 3.80 is the last version to support [[Windows 95]], [[Windows NT 4.0]], [[Windows 98]] and [[Windows Me]].<ref name="releases" />
* WinRAR 4.11 is the last version to support [[Windows 2000]].<ref name=releases/>
* WinRAR 6.02 is the last version to support [[Windows XP]] (except the console version Rar.exe).<ref name=releases/>
* WinRAR 7.01 is the last version to support [[Windows Vista]] (and [[32-bit computing|32-bit]] Windows editions).<ref name="releases" />