Download WinRAR 5.40 Beta 1

RAR Labs has released the first beta release of version 5.40 of its RAR and WinRAR archiving tools. The popular compression tool is available for a variety of operating systems, including Windows, Linux, and OS X. It handles most common formats – including rar, zip, cab, arj, lzh, tar, gz, ace, uue, bz2, jar, iso , 7z and z – has a skinnable interface, and support for Zip64 and multivolume cab files. The following changes and improvements have been made in this release:

New:

• “Name encoding” submenu in “Options” menu allows to select encoding for archived file names. This selection affects archive browsing and extraction commands. You can use Ctrl+E keyboard shortcut to access this menu quickly.
  It can be useful when unpacking an archive without Unicode file names. For example, unpacking a zip file with Chinese archived names in Windows with Russian specified as a language for non-Unicode programs.
• If RAR recovery volumes (.rev files) are present in the same folder as usual RAR volumes, archive test command verifies .rev contents after completing testing .rar files.
  If you wish to test only .rev files without checking .rar volumes, you can select .rev files in WinRAR file list and apply “Test” only to them or run:
  rar t arcname.part1.rev
  in the command line.
• While NTFS file system permits file names with trailing spaces and dots, a lot of Windows programs fail to process such names correctly. If “Allow potentially incompatible names” option in “Advanced” page of extraction dialog is turned off, WinRAR removes trailing spaces and dots, if any, from file names when extracting.
  This option is turned off by default.
  Command line RAR also removes trailing spaces and dots when extracting unless -oni switch is specified.
• Previously “Synchronize archive contents” update mode (-as command line switch) aborted if some of archiving folders could not be read. Now WinRAR continues performing the operation and preserves archived files matching unreadable folders.
• WinRAR Shift+Del delete command can be used to delete folders containing non-standard file names with trailing spaces and dots. Usual delete to Recycle Bin also as Shift+Del in previous WinRAR versions cannot delete such folders.
  Unlike Del command, Shift+Del removes files permanently, they are not moved to Recycle Bin. No additional prompts are issued for files with read-only and system attributes.
• You can drag folders from folder tree panel and drop them to other programs or Desktop to copy or unpack them. Drag the archive icon in tree panel root to unpack the entire archive.
• “New folder” button in extraction dialog proposes a new folder name based on archive name instead of generic “New Folder”.
• Command line RAR version information:
  • if -iver switch is specified, RAR displays the version number and quits. You can run just “RAR -iver”;
  • “x86” or “x64” is displayed in Windows RAR version information both for -iver and in the copyright title for other commands.
• If -p switch is used without optional parameter, a password can be also set with file redirection or pipe.
  For example: rar -p myarc.rar myfiles < psw.txt
• Command line RAR treats ‘arcname.partN’ as ‘arcname.partN.rar’ if ‘arcname.partN’ does not exist and ‘arcname.part#.rar’ exists.
  For example, it is allowed to run:
  RAR x arcname.part01
  to start extraction from arcname.part01.rar
• Improvements in 7z archive support:
  • “Solid” status is correctly detected and reported for 7z archives in WinRAR “Info” command;
  • dictionary size is displayed for LZMA and LZMA2 7z archives in WinRAR “Info” command;
  • unknown packed size for files inside of 7z solid block is denoted as ‘?’ instead of ‘0’ when browsing the archive contents in WinRAR.
• Maximum comment length for RAR archives is increased from 64 to 256 KB.
  Since SFX script commands are stored in archive comment, it allows a longer main and license text in SFX archives.
• Size of default WinRAR viewer font is scaled up properly in Windows high DPI mode.
• Minimum supported Windows version is Windows XP SP3 now. WinRAR will not run in Windows XP without service packs.
• “Settings/File list/Allow all uppercase names” option is removed. This option was intended to simplify transition from MS DOS to Windows and is not needed anymore.

Bug fixed:

• WinRAR 5.31 x64 “Compress and email” command did not work with Microsoft Outlook x64;
• If WinRAR 5.31 version for one of right to left languages ​​was installed in Windows with English or other not right to left system language, WinRAR could change Windows Explorer layout to right to left;
• If archive was stored in a folder without “Write” permission and if archive contents was extracted with drag and drop to a writable folder, WinRAR issued an unnecessary privileges elevation prompt.

The following downloads are available:
WinRAR 5.40 beta 1 (32bit)
WinRAR 5.40 beta 1 (64bit)
RAR 5.40 beta 1 for Linux (32bit)
RAR 5.40 beta 1 for Linux (64bit)
RAR 5.40 beta 1 for FreeBSD
RAR 5.40 beta 1 for OS X