There is no indicator whether data has been compressed with RAR or RAR 5 so that it is likely that at least some users will run into issues when they try to open these new formats.

The files cannot be unpacked as a result on the friend's system as the new format is not supported by the programs that the friend has available on the PC.ħ-Zip users who try to extract a RAR 5 archive will receive the error message that it can not open the file as an archive which may lead to the conclusion that the archive is corrupt if they do not know about RAR 5. The friend uses an older version of WinRAR or a third party program like 7-Zip. Why that is important? Because third party programs may not support the new format right when it comes out.Įxample: you are compressing files with the new RAR 5.0 format and transfer them to a friend's computer. What this means is that WinRAR 5.0 users have the option to create standard RAR archives but also archives that make use of the new compression algorithm.

Probably the biggest new feature in this WinRAR version is the new RAR 5.0 archive format that the program ships with.

The new version is available for download on the official homepage for 32-bit and 64-bit versions of the Windows operating system (English language only). RARLAB has released the first beta version of the upcoming WinRAR 5.0 archive manager today.

Winrar archive manager