WinRAR Goes Portable! (Finally)
Note: A more recent version is available!
WinRAR finally made the big step and went portable! The announcement came today via a press release and is currently featured on the official site of WinRAR but not RarLab.
The version number for WinRAR Unplugged is 3.62 despite the latest WinRAR for Windows version being 3.70 Beta 4.
As with all portable software, WinRAR Unplugged can be installed on any removable storage device (USB Stick, Memory card, External HDD) and then can be used on any computer that device is connected to.
Something worth of note: existing WinRAR licenses can be used with Unplugged, a new one is not required (GG, win.rar!).
Install is actually too big of a word, since the process consists of simply uncompressing the contents of the WinRAR Unplugged kit on the storage device of your choice. The easiest way to do this is download the self-extracting kit, copy it to the storage device, run it and watch as it unpacks itself in that location. Alternatively, you can save it on your internal HDD, run it and point it to unpack the contents on the external storage device.
After the “installation” is complete, all you need to do is go to the “WinRAR Unplugged” folder and double click the “Launch WinRAR.exe” file. This will start the WinRAR Unplugged Launcher, which stays in the systray and allows you to start the actual program. The launcher stays around even if you close WinRAR, you need to manually close it by right clicking on the systray icon and choosing “Exit”.
One thing you should be warned about is you should never ever disconnect the device that contains WinRAR Unplugged while the program or the launcher is still running, as doing so may cause data loss on that device or even (rarely) hardware damage.
(.exe SFX 1.80MB, MD5: CFCE9D11A059BC7DC3A3A3AE3C677D71)
More information: WinRAR Unplugged Info page
- When you place WinRAR on an external device, you can use it (including your profiles, AV-Code, themes, etc.) anywhere a Windows PC is available.
- Complete storage and backup solution
- Do you like to have your personal data with you on an external device when travelling? Now you can take WinRAR Unplugged with you on your external drives. With WinRAR unplugged you can manage your data just like at home - anywhere you go!
- Safe and secure
- When you remove the device with WinRAR Unplugged, all your information is secure and leaves with you.
- All included - Your personal license key for WinRAR is also valid for WinRAR Unplugged!
- WinRAR Unplugged supports 7 interchangeable languages within one version! Supported languages: English, French, Italian, German, Spanish, Japanese and simplified Chinese.
April 7th, 2009 at 11:20 am
After testing WinRAR unplugged for awhile, I decided to return to 7-zip portable. It’s slower to load than 7z and is just an evaluation copy (limited-time shareware). RAR used to be a good compression algorithm but 7z is slowly replacing it in most real-world applications. There’s very little reason to use WinRAR Unplugged. People should ditch the has-been proprietary RAR format and embrace the better 7z alternative.
April 26th, 2009 at 7:48 pm
“is slowly replacing it in most real-world applications” - ??? - i really wonder where that idea came from…
May 17th, 2009 at 7:39 pm
[...] Great program He means is there a version that can be run off a USB. ~B~ Apparently so: http://www.worthinstalling.com/2007/…e-finally.html __________________ Member of the ATI 4850 Club ..:Q6600 Club:..
August 22nd, 2009 at 10:41 pm
portable used to mean ability to be run on variety of OSes.
Zipeg opens RAR files and is at least portable between Mac and Windows and also free.
October 12th, 2009 at 2:23 pm
Ummm, good program. But i recommend peazip which is available at its portable edition to. It can extract rar 7z Tar gaz and its easy to use