WinRAR help

[DaveO'Leary]

Hi all
I've downloaded a trial version of WinRAR. I have a .rar file on 'my videos' what do I do next to play the video? The help section with WIN seems a bit ambiguous. I've opened WIN and have the .rar file listed along with all my others, left clicked it, what do I do next?

Any help much appreciated.
Dave

[Gertrude the Wombat]

I'm struggling to see how your question makes sense.

WinRAR is a file compression utility which works on files with extension .rar, just like WinZIP is a file compression utility which works on files with extension .zip.

What connection do you think this has with playing videos? :confused: :confused: :confused:

[DaveO'Leary]

Err? Ok, well how do I un-compress the .rar file using WinRAR so I can play it on Media player? It won't play using Media player if I just click on 'play' nor is there an option on the 'drop down' to unzip it with media player.:confused:

Putting it another way.......How do I play a .rar file on Windows Media player, I have WinRAR programe.


Dave

[Gertrude the Wombat]

Your question:

"How do I play a .rar file on Windows Media player, I have WinRAR programe."

still doesn't make sense, assuming that by WinRAR you mean the same thing that I've got on my machine.

If you have a file whose name ends in .rar it may or may not be an archive file that WinRAR understands. If it is, then you can use WinRAR to extract the contents, which will be further files and/or directories. Some of these files might be video files, just as they might be anything else - we won't know unless you tell us. To find out, double click on the .rar file and see what WinRAR tells you about it.

On the other hand, it is possible that you have a video file in some video format or other that also uses the extension .rar. There is, regrettably, no law of nature that stops two different organisations choosing the same extension for two completely different and unconnected purposes. If this is the case then (1) WinRAR won't understand the file, and (2) you'll have to find something that does understand the particular format of file that you've got.

Whatever, there is no way that WinRAR is going to play video. That just isn't what it does. Assuming that by "WinRAR" you mean this thing (http://www.rarlab.com/) and not some different completely unconnected thing that might also be called "WinRAR". (Just like file extensions, there's nothing to stop two organisations using the same name for their software, unless one of them can actually be bothered to sue the other and even then they might lose.)

[126,7]

Just open the folder where the video is in, until you get to the .rar file. Now right click the file and select the function where it says "extract here" or even where it says "Extract to" and then it extrats the video in the folder you selected.
You can only watch it once it has been extracted. Usually an AVI or MPG. Easy.

[effortless]

Just to make your day even worse I have three files with .rar extensions which are each a diferent format. I have never in five years, found a program to open two of them.

[DaveO'Leary]

126.7/Gertrude thanks for the feedback/info I'll bash on with it.

Effortless; Try this site, free download for player and no codecs req.....
http://www.videolan.org/vlc/

Dave

[vapilot2004]

If WinRAR was told not to change Windows file associations (the .rar etc) a left click won't do anything except bring up the 'what do I do with this file' Windows dialog. Start at #1 >>>>

If WinRAR does open when you click then you are halfway home - please skip to #2 below >>>>

1.
Open WinRAR and open an Explorer window with your RAR files within.
Drag and drop the file onto WinRAR.

2.
Click the Extract All button (lower right) save the file (by default the same directory as the original rar file) by clicking OK in the popup dialog and in a few seconds you should have your extracted and ready to play file.


Good Luck!

[Tarq57]

Just a heads-up; make sure you scan the extracted files for malware before activating them in the media player of your choice, unless you have good reason to trust the source.
I've downloaded alleged "movie files" before that were compressed, upon extraction it turned out to be an executable to install adware. Nice.

[vapilot2004]

Just a heads-up; make sure you scan the extracted files for malware before activating them in the media player of your choice, unless you have good reason to trust the source.
I've downloaded alleged "movie files" before that were compressed, upon extraction it turned out to be an executable to install adware. Nice.
Good Advice!

Media Player also can be hacked/hijacked by codec downloads and other exploits contained within a media file that may or may not have been addressed by Windows Security Updates.