Windows 11 will have native support for processing other file formats, such as RAR, which, along with ZIP, are the two most important in the group of file compressors.

Support, a really useful and straightforward new feature for all Windows 11 userswas announced at BUILD 2023 and will be implemented in an upcoming system update, but outside of the new ‘Moments 3’ version that was also announced at the developer conference and started rolling out today.

To increase system compatibility with multiple file formats, Microsoft directly adopted (as in other components) they used available open source tools. In this case, you use a project libarchive as product manager Panos Panay reported: “We’ve added native support for additional archive formats, including tar, 7-zip, RAR, gz, and many others that use the open source libarchive project… This will allow these archives to perform better on Windows.«.

Let’s say Microsoft added support for ZIP in Windows 98. It’s certainly the most widely used compressed file format, but there are other important formats that weren’t supported by Windows and users had to use third-party applications, some closed source, and/or paid.

Arrival is especially important native RAR support in Windows 11. This format offers compression levels better than zip and the use of the default application for processing this format, WinRAR, very high compression or decompression speeds and a 128-bit AES encryption tool.

It is also important to support other file formats such as gz or TAR which are used dominantly in Linux. Few can be surprised after the declared “love” of the free system with Windows Subsystem for Linux and others. Libarchive supports other formats such as bzip2, lha, cab, xar or cpio, which could potentially be added in the future.

Support for these file formats is a “work in progress” and will be rolled out for Windows 11 users in a future system update. It’s welcome because it’s a very useful new feature for file management that avoids the need to install third-party tools and can be managed from Windows Explorer.