Software Update: 7-Zip 4.30 beta

The archiving program 7-Zip was updated to version 4.30 beta yesterday. This program can handle various compression formats, but specializes in its own developed 7z format. In this version an interesting option has been added that should improve the extraction of archive files. However, this option only works on Windows 2003 Server, the 64-bit version of Windows XP, and Windows Vista, and creates larger pages of memory, which may cause some delay when starting extraction. The full changelog looks like this:

changes:

• Files 7zFMn.exe, 7zGn.exe, 7-zipn, 7za.exe, 7zC.sfx were removed from 7-zip package
• 7-Zip now uses uncompressed SFX: 7z.sfx
• Sfx modules 7z.sfx and 7zCon.sfx now use msvcrt.dll
• Speed ​​optimizations in LZMA maximum/ultra compressing.
• LZMA now supports word size up to 273
• 7-Zip now reduces dictionary size for LZMA, if you compress files smaller than specified dictionary size.
• 7-Zip now can use large memory pages:
  • GUI: 7-Zip File Manager / Options / Settings / Use large memory pages.
  • Command line version: -slp switch.
    This feature allows to increase speed of compressing. But 7-Zip can make some pause at starting of compressing for allocating large pages. Also Task Manager doesn’t show real memory usage of program, if 7-Zip uses large pages. This feature only works on Windows 2003 / XP x64 / Vista. Also you must have administrator’s rights for your system. Recommended size of RAM: 1 GB or more. To install this feature you must run 7-Zip File Manager at least once, close it and reboot system.
• Some bugs were fixed

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