If you do a lot of file sharing or downloading from newsgroups then
you've probably encountered .rar files. If you're accustomed to
Winzip then you're probably somewhere between frustrated and annoyed
with them. Here are some tips for coping with .rar files in
Windows.
Like most archives, the extract utilities for .rar files are free. Unfortunately,
the free extractor for Windows is a command line tool which is pain for
most users. If you do a search you can find a few people selling a
shell (UI) for this free extractor. Bah, I'm not going to pay for a
fancy UI when all I need is the ability to right-click on a .rar file
and select "Extract".
Here is about the simplest way I can
think of to unrar files without buying any software.
Step #1: Download and install the free command line .rar
extractor. Jump over to
http://www.rarlab.com/rar_add.htm
(link opens in new window) and look for something called "UnRAR for
Windows". Download and install it. It will default the installation
folder to "C:\Program
Files\UnRar\".
Step #2: Open Windows Explorer and open the Tools->Folder Options
Menu
Step #3: On the Folder Options dialog, hit the File Types tab. This
lists all the registered file types on your computer. In general, you
don't want to mess around with these too much unless you know what you're
doing. You'll probably see a lot of file types you've never seen before,
just leave them alone. Scroll down to the RAR file extension, you
might
already have RAR listed as an extension. You can delete it if you like
or leave it. If you delete it then any programs that are registered to
handle .rar files won't be any more. It's your choice.
Step #4: If you didn't have RAR listed in the previous step (or
deleted it), hit the
New button. A dialog will pop-up. Enter "rar" (without the
quotes, no period, lowercase) in the box.
Step #5: Hit the Advanced button in the Folder Options dialog. The
Edit File Type dialog will load. If you registered the .rar extension in
the previous step there may be a default "open" action. Go
ahead and delete that. If you already had the .rar extension registered
then there will probably be other actions here. If you want to delete
them go ahead. Leaving them won't hurt though.
Step #6: On the Edit File Type dialog hit the New... button. A
dialog will open to set a new action. In the Action box type
"Extract to Current Folder" or whatever else you feel like.
You could put "Format Hard Drive" there if it makes you happy.
In the Application [..]: box type:
"C:\Program
Files\Unrar\UnRAR.exe" x "%1". Of course, if you installed UnRAR
to a different folder you'll want to use that path instead. It should look
remarkably like the picture
below when you're done. [Note: In Windows XP the title of the dialog is "New Action"]
Step #7: Hit OK on the Edit action dialog, then hit OK on the Edit
File type dialog, and one more time on the Folder Options dialog. Now
it's time to try it out. From Windows Explorer go to wherever you have a
.rar file and right-click on it. You should see a menu option
called "Extract to Current Folder". Well, unless you called it
something different in the previous step.
If you set up everything correctly the file(s) contained the .rar
archive will be extracted.
If you want to try some more advanced UnRAR options, run "UnRAR"
from the command line with no files specified. It will print a list
of all supported options, there are a lot. The only one I find
useful is the -ad switch. This causes the archive to extract to a folder
with the same name. I use it for archives that contain multiple files.
You can add a second action to do this as well.
If you want a
half-way decent icon for .rar files, right click on the picture to the
left and hit "Save Target As..". It a link to little icon I
put together in about 2 minutes. Back on that Edit File Type dialog
you can set the icon.
Everything on this site is free. I'll never use pop-ups or randomly
generated ads to support it. If you've found something here to be
especially helpful or entertaining please consider making a small
donation. This can be done through a secure PayPal transaction or by
purchasing one of the related items below.
Thanks for visiting my little web page!
