WinRAR - RAR Compression Tool

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(Continued from previous part...)

Creating Multi-Volume RAR Files

If you have large files or directories, WinRAR will normally create a single large RAR file, which is not convenient for storing it on diskette or send it as an email. In this case, you should use WinRAR's multi-volume RAR file option.

Suppose that I have a sample music file, my_music.mp3. Its file size is 4713 KB. Here are the steps to archive it to a multi-volume RAR file:

1. Run WinRAR and navigate the directory where my_music.mp3 is stored.

2. Select my_music and select menu "Commands" > "Add files to archive". The "Archive name and parameters" dialog box shows up.

3. Click the "Profiles" button. A dropdown list shows up.

4. Select the "Create 1.44MB volumes" option. Notice the following fields are changed immediately:

• Compression method: Best
• Split volumes, bytes: 1,457,664
• Create solid archive: checked
• Put recover record: checked

5. Enter c:\temp\my_music.rar in the "Archive name" field and click the OK button. my_music.pm3 will be archived into 4 files:

   1,457,664 my_music.part1.rar
   1,457,664 my_music.part2.rar
   1,457,664 my_music.part3.rar
     423,474 my_music.part4.rar

This is perfect. Now I can copy these files to 4 diskettes, or email them to a friend, who has a small mail box, one at a time.

Extracting files out of a multi-volume RAR file is easy. Here are the key steps:

1. Make sure that all volumes, *.part1.rar, *.part2.rar, ..., are in the same directory.

2. Run WinRAR and perform the extract process on any of the volumes, WinRAR knows how to extract files from all the related volumes.

Windows Explorer Context Menu

WinRAR can be configured with a number of options in the Windows Explorer context menu. There menu options provide you short cuts to different WinRAR functions. Let's setup some of them and do some tests.

1. Run WinRAR and select menu Options > Settings. The "Settings" dialog box shows up.

2. Click the "Integration" tab and the "Context menu items" button. The "Context menu items" dialog box shows up.

3. Make sure that the following options are checked:

• Extract files...
• Extract here
• Extract to <folder>
• Add to archive...
• Add to <archive name>
• ...

4. Click the OK button to close the "Context menu items" dialog box and click the OK button again to close the "Settings" dialog box.

5. Exit WinRAR.

(Continued on next part...)

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