Opening RAR Files Natively in Windows 11 Is Coming

[Xploit Machine]

One of the most popular archive file formats for decades has been RAR. Its name is an acronym for Roshal Archive because it was created 30 years ago by a Russian engineer named Eugene Roshal. He also created the popular WinRAR file archiver program two years later in 1995. It's been constantly updated ever since, including a beta update just last week.

Using WinRAR or similar programs was the only way to open RAR files in Windows, as Microsoft has never added native support for the format. That is going to change very soon. As part of Microsoft's Build 2023 event, the company mentioned that Windows 11 would be adding support for opening more archive file formats. Included in the list was RAR. Microsoft stated it is adding this support because Windows 11 now uses the libarchive open-source project.

That mention of RAR support, as well as support for opening other file archive formats like 7-zip and gz lit up the internet with comments on Twitter like this;​

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1661046571679588353

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1661053549436977161

The Verge added that Microsoft said it should start adding support for these file formats in an upcoming Windows 11 preview build that should drop later this week. While adding a way to natively open RAR files in Windows 11 is great, there doesn't seem to be a way for Microsoft's OS to compress files using RAR by itself. That means programs like WinRAR will likely still be needed for a while.​

 

[Xploit Machine]

Windows 11 Gets Native RAR Support, Here Is How It Compares To WinRAR & Other Apps

Microsoft plans to release a big feature update for Windows 11 later this year. Version 23H2 is expected to introduce many quality-of-life improvements and new capabilities, including a File Explorer redesign. Although there are concerns about performance and bugs, in this article, I want to focus on the positive side and look closely at one of the best new features the redesigned File Explorer will introduce: native RAR, TAR, 7Z, and other file compression format support.

Before Windows 11 version 23H2, ZIP was the only natively supported archive format. Therefore, users had to opt for third-party apps to work with RAR, 7Z, etc. Even though there is no shortage of free and premium file compression apps, native support is always better for the average consumer—you do not need to look for a program to extract a single randomly downloaded archive.

Still, the change raises a question: Can the updated File Explorer replace WinRAR, 7Zip, NanaZIP, and other dedicated apps for those frequently working with archives?

To answer the question, I decided to test the updated File Explorer versus WinRAR, arguably the most popular app of its kind (which is honored by the change), and NanaZIP, a great fork of 7Zip for Windows 11. I downloaded Microsoft's massive 24GB free Windows 11 virtual machine and packed its files into three previously unsupported formats: RAR, 7Z (50% compression rate), and TAR. Now, it is time to unpack the archives and measure the time it takes for Windows 11's File Explorer, WinRAR, and NanaZIP to complete the job.

Each app went through three tests to get the average result on my desktop PC with the Ryzen 5 2600 (I will upgrade to 5600 in a few days), 32GB DDR4-3200, NVIDIA RTX 4060, and Samsung 980 SSD 500GB. Then, I repeated the process on my laptop with the Intel Core i3-1125G4, 16GB DDR4-3200, and a 500GB NVMe SSD. Keep in mind that my goal was to see the performance difference between apps, not to find another reason to upgrade my computers, which I did anyway since the Zen+ architecture is starting to show its age, and I need a better CPU for the upcoming Forza Motorsport release.

The experiment revealed that File Explorer had no problems extracting TAR archives and could keep up with WinRAR and NanaZIP: all three finished in about 80 seconds, an unsurprising result considering the nature of TAR format.

RAR was next, and it immediately tripped File Explorer, causing it to complete the process in almost six minutes, more than three times slower than WinRAR and two times more than NanaZIP. Oof!



7Z added insult to injury: File Explorer took nearly nine minutes to extract, while WinRAR and NanaZIP finished in about one minute. Tests on my Intel-based laptop showed virtually the same result, proving that third-party apps are much better and faster at decompressing files than the upgraded File Explorer.



Is it a problem? Hardly, if you rarely need to extract a RAR or another previously unsupported file type. However, those frequently working with archives are unlikely to ditch WinRAR, NanaZIP, 7Zip, and other applications. And it is not all about the inferior performance—File Explorer is significantly less convenient. For example, it does not display a proper status bar (good luck guessing how much time is left to finish extracting your "homework"), it cannot open a password-protected archive, and ZIP remains the only supported format when you need to pack a bunch of files into an archive (not to mention numerous other features like splitting files, adjusting the compression ratio, etc).

Although Microsoft could have made archive support slightly more convenient, we probably should not crucify it for the current implementation. It will be enough to make Windows 11 better for your average Joe without putting WinRAR and other companies out of business. Indeed, WinRAR, this is fine.

Source NeoWin​