Windows 11 will gain native support for RAR and other formats

Windows 11 will finally have native RAR supporteliminates the need for third-party programs to open files. The innovation was announced by Microsoft on Tuesday (23), along with other improvements that will arrive in the latest version of the operating system.

The director of product, Windows and devices at Redmond giant Panos Panay also revealed compatibility with other popular compressed file formats, good news for those working with different types of documents. Functionality was an old request from users.

“Added native support for additional archive formats including tar, 7-zip, rar, gz and more using the libarchive open source project. Now you can get improved performance from the archiving function when compressing in Windows”, the administrator congratulated.

While Panay confirmed the availability of RAR support in Windows 11 and other formats, it did not say when that would happen. The expectation is that this and other news will be provided in one of the next updates of Microsoft’s operating system.

More improvements are on the way

The possibility of compressing and decompressing files in the latest version of Windows without installing additional software was not the only addition announced by the great tech manager. According to him, users will also be able to take advantage of new features and experiences in the Microsoft Store based on artificial intelligence (AI).

A section devoted to the best AI tools will be available in the Windows 11 store, helping to find different solutions integrated with technology. It will also help search for better rated programs by bringing summaries of what other users have written about the software.

The taskbar is another section with noticeable improvements, including identification and quick access to any instance of each application hosted in it. The user can also close programs by right-clicking on the application from the taskbar and hide the date and time when taking screenshots or recording the screen.