At the Microsoft Build developer’s conference, Microsoft confirmed that Windows 11 is now getting native support for RAR files. So, users won’t need any third-party apps like WinRAR to open and extract RAR files.
Microsoft is using the multi-format libarchive project to offer support for RAR files. Not just RAR, it will also support other formats such as tar, 7-zip, gz, and many others.
“We have added native support for additional archive formats, including tar, 7-zip, rar, gz, and many others using the libarchive open-source project. You now can get the improved performance of archive functionality during compression on Windows,” says Microsoft in a blog post.
RAR archive format was created 30 years ago by a Russian engineer named Eugene Roshal. He also created the WinRAR program in 1995 and the software keeps getting regular updates.
Microsoft added support for ZIP archives in Windows back in 1998 but users needed third-party software to extract other compression formats such as 7-Zip (.7z), RAR (.rar), or gz (.gz) archives. 7-Zip was the most popular among users for extracting RARA and 7-Zip archives. Most users also use WinRar which offers a never-ending 40 days trial.
