The archive RAR format from the time of its appearance and still remains one of the most popular and most frequently used by users around the world for data packaging (file and folder compression). The latest generation Windows systems have their own tools for working with archives, but using them is not always appropriate. Next, it is proposed to understand how to open a RAR file on Windows 8 or in any similar OS of the latest modifications.
Can I unzip a RAR archive using Windows?
Windows users of the seventh modification and above probably know that for working with ZIP archives the systems themselves have a special tool that allows you to view the contents of packed files and retrieve data if necessary. In this regard, a completely natural question arises: can it be used to open RAR archives?
Unfortunately, the built-in ZIP archiver does not work with the data of this format, no matter what they say (in fact, the system itself does not recognize such files).
How to Open RAR Files on Windows 8: General Technique
Thus, to perform all the necessary operations to extract the packed data from the archive container, you can offer only one single solution, which consists in installing additional software that can work with the described format. Despite the wide distribution of the RAR format and its certain versatility, not all applications are able to correctly extract compressed files and directories, so when thinking about how to open RAR files on Windows 8, we will focus only on those applications that guarantee a 100% result and are most effective . As already clear, we will talk about archiver programs.
How to open RAR on Windows 8: universal tool
It goes without saying that the RAR format itself was not created from scratch, but in order to be able to work with it, some kind of software was needed that made it possible to create archive containers of this type and extract packed data. Such a "native" application, which was originally designed to use the RAR format as the main and installed by default, is the WinRAR program. To open a file, it is completely optional to run the application itself.
During the installation process, the installer automatically integrates the necessary user commands into the Explorer context menu and associates RAR files. Thus, it is enough to use the PCM menu on the selected archive and select the desired action. The uniqueness of this program also lies in the fact that when unpacking damaged archives or underloaded files, they can be "cured" or you can extract not all the contents at once, but one component at a time.
Additional archiver programs
The only drawback of the "native" program is that it is paid, and the trial (trial) version is clearly limited in its capabilities. In addition, when you start the application, a reminder constantly pops up that you need to buy the program, which is incredibly annoying.
Speaking about how to open RAR files on Windows 8 without using a “native” tool, you can turn to free programs. For example, the WinZIP application, which is installed as a separate program on top of a tool built into the system, allows you to perform most previously inaccessible operations, including processing RAR format files.
However, according to most experts, currently the most powerful competitor of all known archiver programs is a relatively new application called 7-Zip. Not only can it work with almost all known types of archive data, including even hopelessly outdated ones like those that used to be used in DOS systems or simply weren’t widely used, it also has a huge number of additional functions that aren’t at analogues. The same encryption algorithm for packaging data is superior to similar tools used in other similar utilities. The steps for opening archives are similar to those used for the “native” program, since all the necessary commands are presented in the PCM menu of the same “Explorer”.
Online resources
Finally, if we talk about how to open RAR files on Windows 8 using all possible methods and solutions, we can advise you to consult specialized websites on the Internet (if you don’t have the right program at hand). But such a technique looks completely irrational, since the sites themselves can be set many restrictions regarding the size of the source archives, fees may be charged for unpacking data, etc. Isn't it easier to install some kind of free archiver?