How to Install WinRAR 3.9

This tutorial walks you through the installation process of WinRAR and suggests configuration settings for efficient usage of this application.

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» What is WinRAR?

WinRAR is a shareware file compression software similar to the once ubiquitous WinZip.

You are bound to come across files ending with the .rar file extension, including .part1.rar, .part01.rar and so on. What's nifty about WinRAR is that while it has complete support for RAR and ZIP archives, it is also capable of unpacking various other types of archives, including ARJ, LZH, TAR, GZ, ACE, UUE, BZ2, JAR, ISO, EXE, 7z, and Z.

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» Let's begin

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» Download

Download WinRAR from http://www.rarsoft.com/download.htm

If you're running the 64-bit version of Windows, then click on the link titled "WinRAR x64" on the webpage after following the link provided above.

If you're unsure, click on the very first link.

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» Installation

Once the download is complete, go ahead and run the file by double-clicking it.

You will be presented with a the following window.


Figure 1

Click the button titled "Install".

The installation process only takes a few seconds.

Following this, you will be presented with options to customise the application's behaviour.


Figure 2

Click the button titled "Context menu items..." located under "Shell Integration".

In this new window, untick the following options under "Choose items to display in Explorer context menus":

• Extract files...
• Extract each archive to separate folder
• Open with WinRAR (for SFX archives)
• Add to [archive name]
• Compress to [archive name] and email
• Compress and email...

Thus keeping only the following options selected:

• Extract Here
• Extract to [folder\]
• Add to archive...

Figure 3

This ensures that your context menu (right-click menu) remains compact and does not include unnecessary clutter.

Now click the button titled "OK" to save and close the window.

Returning to the previous window (Figure 2), again click the button titled "OK".


Figure 4

In the final window, click the button titled "Done" to complete the installation.


Figure 5

You will be prompted to restart your computer. Clicking the "OK" button will not automatically trigger Windows to restart, so you need not worry about saving your work before clicking the button.

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Once you've restarted your computer, click here to Learn how to Extract RAR files.