Opening a ".rar" file?

[CW Jones]

Anyone know how? I just downloaded a program.. but the file extension is .rar and nothing on my computer will open it... A google search gave me a few programs but none of them would either... HELP

 

[PhotoXopher]

Winzip, among a host of others like Winrar for example.

 

[JamieR]

Mac or PC?

Stuffit Expander for Mac
Winrar for PC

 

[CW Jones]

Its a PC and Winzip didnt work..... its like a document type thing, not the folder icon

 

[JamieR]

Yes, .rar is a file type. I've never used Winzip myself, but Winrar always worked when i had a PC.

 

[Josh66]

WinRAR

If it's not working, you're doing something wrong.

 

[CW Jones]

ya well I extracted them... but cant install it now still... no idea what is going on

 

[AlexColeman]

Does it say part 1? I fso you might be missing a part.

 

[CW Jones]

no it doesn't say any parts or anything. It unzips... then there are a couple more folders. I follow the instructions but cannot find the .exe file to start the install process

 

[musicaleCA]

Then it's probably a problem with the distribution and not you.

At any rate, by far the most versatile lil' compression program out there for Windows is 7zip. It pretty much supports every compressed file type under the sun that's seen any real use. And the 7z file format is freaking amazing for compression; you can finagle really small files out of it (of course it's not as ubiquitous as ZIP, which in all honesty is what should be used in most cases; nearly every modern OS has some sort of native support for ZIP).

As for the OS X platform, I disagree with JamieR. Unarchiver is a brilliant little program that integrates well with the OS, the only place it falters with with compressed files with many parts; in that case, BetterZip is probably the best choice. The problem with StuffIt is that it doesn't support as many formats, and uses an inordinate amount of system resources compared to Unarchiver or BetterZip.

 

[JamieR]

There's nothing to disagree about, i didn't say it was the best did i? I suggested it.

 

[musicaleCA]

lol, okay true true. My bad. No offence intended.

 

[JamieR]

It's all good my friend.