HI, is there any hack for zipfldr.dll in order to support rar files natively?If not, could any programmer do that?

it would be grateful!!

bye

None that I know of....

You will need to install winrar the normal way, to get RAR support and the shell extensions.

Yeah I know, but that´s what i´m trying to avoid! I want my system as clean as possible. Im not a programmer but looking at the code of some dlls of winrar and copying it to zipfldr.dll could work (or not, i have no idea )

thanks anyway BYE

why wouldnt u want a program like winrar/powerarchiver/winzip ? the zipfldr.dll only supports zip, these other programs support like 20 more formats

Yeah, i know these apps and they are wonderful. But, wouldn´t be great to have a windows xp with zip and rar support with no 3rd party apps installed?

Advantages: a cleaner disk and registry, no more open 3rd party apps to handle these type of files, no more looooooooong menus when double-clicking, etc.

well it seems that what im looking for is impossible, but maybe Bill Gates is reading this post and gives me the solution in Longhorn (LOL)

Yeah, i know these apps and they are wonderful. But, wouldn´t be great to have a windows xp with zip and rar support with no 3rd party apps installed?

honestly, no.. im not saying no cuz its what u dont wanna hear, but im saying it cuz 3rd party apps add wayyyy more funtionality 2 windows then what windows has itself, with the programs i said b4, u can make SFX archives (self extracting) which windows doesnt support

Advantages: a cleaner disk and registry, no more open 3rd party apps to handle these type of files, no more looooooooong menus when double-clicking, etc.

cleaner disk? 1MB isnt THAT much space

long menu's? these programs all have shell extension options, so u can delete/cul those shell extensions

DOH! (LOL)

Well, i had in mind an user who uses the pc just for gaming, playing music and downloading zip and rar files. But i think you´re right

So, Total Commander for ever in my hard drive

You might want to have a look at 7zip, it is quite compact and easily modifiable:

http://www.7-zip.org/

it does not actually need to be installed, all libraries you do not need can be deleted, writes very little info to the registry when run.

jaclaz

People, don't offer him alternatives when he wants the real thing. He wants the zipfldr.dll extension and wants to see if it would be possible. Personally, I hate WinRAR - it is not free, its icons are terrible, and its UI is not that great either. Heck, I want to know if it is possible to have zipfldr.dll capability for other formats.

Although i thanks people who offered me alternatives, at the end there is someone who understand exactly what i want Come programmers!! you can do it!!

Being a programmer of almost 10 years, I can say that adding RAR file support to Windows would be a BIG task (if not impossible).

Maybe an addon dll file could be made (using the source code for unrarring a file at RarSoft), that could "hook" into Windows zipfldr.dll file but, as I said, it would be a LOT of work and probably isn't possible.

I agree with RaveRod, it isn't as simple as patching uxtheme or something like that... it requires to add functionnality to a dll without the source code and it is much more complicated than that...

It would be much more easier to write a rarfldr.dll, for example, but wouldn't that be considered as a third-party app?

And hacks aren't something I call "clean"... you modify a program without the source code, which is risky... especially a this level!

Personally, I didn't like WinRAR much in the past, but I got used to it and like it very much now (especially since there is 7-zip archive support! - Decompression only though ).

I think the best thing would be to get the source to extract a RAR archive (from the RarSoft website) and create a small EXE that you can stick in system32 and associate it with .rar files.

Ok, I suppose it is very difficult. I'm not a programmer, just a beginner. But in the same way zipfldr.dll was made, we can make a rarfldr.dll. I think it is possible. There are tons of programs that add right-click functionality without opening the "main aplication" (think of some antivirus that have a "scan for viruses" option and when you click it, it doesn't load the "main" program, instead it just loads a small dialog). I would like to talk with more knowledge, but I can't. I will try to study shell programming and see if it is possible or not.

IMHO, your idea is bassackwards. The Zip and Cab file support offered by Windows XP is a horrible peice of bloat. Everytime you open a directory containing zip or cab files Windows processes them even if you have no intention of opening them.

It's another stupid idea implemented by MS Marketing people. If you really want to streamline your system disable Windows support for Zip and Cab files:

regsvr32 /s /u %windir%\system32\zipfldr.dll

regsvr32 /s /u %windir%\system32\cabview.dll

Then install WinZip or WinRar or PowerArchiver or 7Zip. Trust me, you'll notice the improvement in speed.