Here's one solution that doesn't add much to your system (200 Kb + a few registry settings):[list=1]
[*]Download the unrar.exe command line tool from here: [url="http://www.rarlab.com/rar_add.htm"]http://www.rarlab.com/rar_add.htm[/url]
Get the one that matches your Windows system (I tested "UnRAR for Windows" on Windows XP SP2 and it works great).
[*]Run it to install (basically it is just a self extracting archive that puts the unrar.exe program in (default path) C:\Program Files\unrar.
[*]In Windows Explorer right click on a RAR file, select "Open With", then select "Choose Program...", then "Choose Program from a List", then browse to your copy of unrar.exe (which will be here by default C:\Program Files\Unrar\unrar.exe, and check the box that says "Always use the selected program to open this type of file". At this point things will not quite work because unrar.exe needs an extra command line switch to actually do something. You can find out what all the switches are by running unrar.exe/? at a CMD console. The one we want is called x, which means "Extract files with full path".
[*]Run regedit (if you don't know how to do this find instructions on that elsewhere, no point in duplicating that here). You should not do this if you aren't comfortable with it and at the very least back up your Registry or create a System Restore point before doing this.
[*]Find the following key (which was created automatically for you two steps prior):
HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\rar_auto_file\shell\UnRAR\command
[*]Change the value for (Default) to the following (note that I have also deleted the quotation marks as they should not be needed and might also cause problems).
C:\Program Files\Unrar\UnRAR.exe x %1
[*]Now in Windows explorer when you right click on a RAR file you should be able to select "Open With" and then UnRAR your RAR. If you see a CMD dialog pop up for a second and nothing happens you've missed something.
[*]Send a big thank you to Alexander Roshal, the creator of this free utility.
[/list]If you get this working for some RAR files but run into issues with others you might need another switch. In particular, I have not tested this with password protected files. Run unrar/? to check the help for this tool and then modify the registry as needed.
~ Derek Read
[attachment=19167:registry...reenshot.png]
