Updates

[joakim_46]

Latest PowerArchiver 2012 does not support RAR 5.0 archive format. It does not extract any files, and does not present any error message.

[Innuendo]

I can’t peer into spwolf’s mind, but I’m thinking we won’t see support for this until WinRAR 5.0 is out of beta.

But yeah, there should be an error message stating WinRAR 5 archives aren’t supported yet.

[spwolf]

PA 2013 Alpha already supports RAR 5.00… obviously, older versions can not :-).

[spwolf]

if you want to Alpha test, let us know… more the better.

[Socrates]

If a PA user also owns WinRar, and has PA configured to use WinRar, then I assume 2012 will open WinRar files (as long as the user has the beta version of WR installed).

Correct?

[RJWaring]

@Socrates:

If a PA user also owns WinRar, and has PA configured to use WinRar, then I assume 2012 will open WinRar files (as long as the user has the beta version of WR installed).

Correct?

Hi Socrates, If you are using the Latest Version of PA 2012 v13.03 it is capable of running WinRAR’s Engine “rar.exe” v4.20.00 including prior versions.

If you wish to use the latest version of WinRAR V5.00 , then PowerArchiver 2013 v14 is compatible as well as prior versions.

So if you have a Demo of WinRAR , you will need to ensure it’s a demo for v4.20.00 or prior for it to work with 2012. And if you want to test the latest Beta Version of WinRAR V5.00 then the new version of PowerArchiver currently in alpha testing v14.

As WinRAR are still developing version 5 and are treating this as a brand new engine from the ground up which has required the PA team to develop a new script in PA v14 to handle it. I doubt PA 2012 will ever be compatible with anything above V4.20.*

But I could be wrong.

[Socrates]

THIS COMMENT REALLY CUTS BETWEEN AN ALPHA COMMENT AND A MORE GENERAL COMMENT ABOUT FORMATS . . .

1. I fear my last message was unclear . . . or perhaps I misunderstand what the RAR Support option in PA does . . . I was wondering if (a) I owned WINRAR, and (b) had installed beta 5, and © had set the RAR support option in PA (even in 2012), if PA would use the WINRAR Beta, and thus be able to open WinRAR 5 archives.

2. It appears the WinRAR 5 engine is very impressive. I did a quick comparison test. Using PA from the shell, I compressed an entire folder (mostly PDFs and docx files). zipx (highest compression) took 13 sec. 7z took 12 sec.; and RAR5 took 6 seconds! The 7Z and RAR archives were the same size; the zipx was slightly larger.

I thought that perhaps one relevant difference might have been that the two PA tests were done from within the shell while the RAR was created within the RAR window.

Maybe that is the difference. But in trying to make a more adequate comparison, I tried to create the archives from within the open PA window; unfortunately, I had some trouble figuring out how to compress an entire folder, at least with a simple click or two.

Given the results of this admittedly one-off test, it seems like the RAR5 format blew the field away (although another relevant issue is the time it takes to decompress said archives — and that I didn’t test).

Finally, I added compress to RAR to my shell, and did the same test. That took 9 seconds.

This makes me think that I should continue to use PA because of its ability to work with some many archives, but start to use the new RAR 5 format as my default.

Or is this single test an aberration?

BTW, having set the default RAR format (within WinRAR) to RAR 5, PA’s “compress to RAR option” in the shell formed the archive in 8 seconds.

[spwolf]

in Config> RAR Support, you have command line calls for RAR engine… you need to add one for rar 5 format. PA will not use what you set in the GUI (it is not possible). It will use command line version of RAR.

Although I dont think they really changed much there, they just cleaned it up… RAR was always fast, but lesser compression. Basically to compare it to other formats, you would need to test others at lesser strenght.

[spwolf]

@Sir:

Hi Socrates, If you are using the Latest Version of PA 2012 v13.03 it is capable of running WinRAR’s Engine “rar.exe” v4.20.00 including prior versions.

If you wish to use the latest version of WinRAR V5.00 , then PowerArchiver 2013 v14 is compatible as well as prior versions.

So if you have a Demo of WinRAR , you will need to ensure it’s a demo for v4.20.00 or prior for it to work with 2012. And if you want to test the latest Beta Version of WinRAR V5.00 then the new version of PowerArchiver currently in alpha testing v14.

As WinRAR are still developing version 5 and are treating this as a brand new engine from the ground up which has required the PA team to develop a new script in PA v14 to handle it. I doubt PA 2012 will ever be compatible with anything above V4.20.*

But I could be wrong.

well, things are getting confusing:

1. All versions of PA 2012/2013 will work if you are using rar.exe of any kind.
2. If you are just using PA to extract RAR files, like 99% of population, then PA 2012 works with 4.xx, and PA 2013 will work with 5.xx and below.

What Joakim asked was about was #2… so support for that was added in PA 2013 already, works great, and we will have it out as soon as beta is done.

[Socrates]

@spwolf:

in Config> RAR Support, you have command line calls for RAR engine… you need to add one for rar 5 format. PA will not use what you set in the GUI (it is not possible). It will use command line version of RAR.

Although I dont think they really changed much there, they just cleaned it up… RAR was always fast, but lesser compression. Basically to compare it to other formats, you would need to test others at lesser strenght.

Generally all this helps. One more question and one comment.

The question. You said I need to add a special command line for rar 5 format. But the command line (in PA’s RAR Support) calls “rar.exe.” Since I have version 5 installed, I assumed that would create an archive with the rar5 format. If not, what special line or switch would I need?

The comment – and again I realize the files (more PDF than docx) might be atypical – but WinRar 5 created it much faster with the same size as 7z and slightly smaller than zipx.

[spwolf]

@Socrates:

Generally all this helps. One more question and one comment.

The question. You said I need to add a special command line for rar 5 format. But the command line (in PA’s RAR Support) calls “rar.exe.” Since I have version 5 installed, I assumed that would create an archive with the rar5 format. If not, what special line or switch would I need?

The comment – and again I realize the files (more PDF than docx) might be atypical – but WinRar 5 created it much faster with the same size as 7z and slightly smaller than zipx.

thats because those are already compressed files, so doesnt really matter that much what are we compressing them with… for trully compressible files, rar is not as strong.

i assume that rar.exe does not automatically create rar 5.x archives for compatibility reasons… usually we all leave defaults alone when it comes to console tools, since it is important for administrators to be able to simply update application and nothing should change if they dont change the script themselves.

Checking their help for you, i think you should add -ma5 to each line and it will be created in RAR5 format.

[Socrates]

Thanks for the clarification and the parameter.

Apologies that I didn’t manage to find it on their site.

BTW, most of the files I compress are PDFs and DOCXs. But you are right. They only average about a 10% compression. So none of the formats compress them much further (will PAF best this a good bit). Inasmuch as that is right, then speed is critical. so having RAR as an option in PBS would be VERY helpful since that is the way I move files from home to work and back.

[spwolf]

@Socrates:

Thanks for the clarification and the parameter.

Apologies that I didn’t manage to find it on their site.

BTW, most of the files I compress are PDFs and DOCXs. But you are right. They only average about a 10% compression. So none of the formats compress them much further (will PAF best this a good bit). Inasmuch as that is right, then speed is critical. so having RAR as an option in PBS would be VERY helpful since that is the way I move files from home to work and back.

if you really want fast, maybe zip at maximum? all of it really depends on kind of data you compress.

as to paf, yes, hopefully.

[Socrates]

Obviously there is a trade off. For me I do want smaller files since I then have to ftp them – and size does matter. But if it takes much longer to compress the file in the first place (the first step in pbs before FTPing the file), I may actually gain more time than I lose in transfer.

So I tried all three on an outlook.pst file (which is the one outlier to what I normally archive). it’s a 65mb file.

The results:

zipx (strongest compression) 24 sec 7.3mb
7zip (strongest compression) 26 sec 6.7 mb
rar5 8 sec 9.2mb

[PBMCMLXXI]

Great work with RAR5 support in PA 2013 :) Great how PA goes from strength to strength. :)