

This is done to prevent a malicious web page from executing existing files on a user’s computer. It also implements additional checks within the web notifier.

If something happened during the download process, you simply re-downloaded that one piece instead of having to wipe the slate and download the entire file all over again.Īt its annual developer conference this week, Microsoft quietly announced it has added native support for additional file formats including RAR, 7-zip, tar, and gz to Windows 11 using the libarchive open-source project.Īdmittedly, native RAR support coming to Windows is not as big of a deal now as it would have been decades ago. Once you had all of the individual pieces, a program like WinRAR was used to reconstruct the file to its original state. This made them easier to acquire over slower connections. In the earlier days of online file sharing before speedy Internet connections, RAR file spanning was commonly used to split large downloads like games or programs into several smaller chunks.

It is the latter functionality that most people likely remember RAR for. Like ZIP, RAR – short for Roshal Archive – supports data compression but additionally adds error correction and file spanning capabilities to the equation. The proprietary file archive format debuted in 1993 courtesy of Russian software engineer Eugene Roshal. In a nutshell: More than three decades after its introduction, Microsoft has finally added native support for RAR files to Windows.
