Windows 11's Next Big Update Arrives on September 26th With Copilot, RAR Support (theverge.com) 98
Microsoft will release its next big Windows 11 update, 23H2, on September 26th. The update will include the new AI-powered Windows Copilot feature, a redesigned File Explorer, a new Ink Anywhere feature for pen users, big improvements to the Paint app, native RAR and 7-zip file support, a new volume mixer, and much more. From a report: Windows Copilot is the headline feature for the Windows 11 23H2 update, bringing the same Bing Chat feature straight to the Windows 11 desktop. It appears as a sidebar in Windows 11, allowing you to control settings on a PC, launch apps, or simply answer queries. It's integrated all over the operating system, too: Microsoft executives demoed using Copilot to write text messages using data from your calendar, navigation options in Outlook, and more. This is also Microsoft's latest attempt to deliver a digital assistant inside Windows after the company shut down the Cortana app inside Windows 11 last month.
It might be more successful this time, particularly as it's powered by the same technologies behind Bing Chat, so you can ask real questions and get answers (that might not always be accurate) in return. [...] Microsoft is also adding native RAR and 7-zip support to Windows 11 with this update. That means you'll be able to easily open files like tar, 7-zip, rar, gz, and many others using the libarchive open-source project that's now built into Windows 11. Microsoft is also planning to provide support for creating these file formats in 2024.
It might be more successful this time, particularly as it's powered by the same technologies behind Bing Chat, so you can ask real questions and get answers (that might not always be accurate) in return. [...] Microsoft is also adding native RAR and 7-zip support to Windows 11 with this update. That means you'll be able to easily open files like tar, 7-zip, rar, gz, and many others using the libarchive open-source project that's now built into Windows 11. Microsoft is also planning to provide support for creating these file formats in 2024.
Poor WinRar... (Score:4, Funny)
Being deprived of their massive revenue base is going to be a tough time....
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Shout out to all the WINRAR buyers out there
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All 3 of them?
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After I got my first real job, one of the first genuine licenses I ever paid money for was WinRAR.
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Hello, and welcome to my RAR AMA. Any questions?
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Shout out to all the WINRAR didnt-buy-but-still-used people!
Man those where the days. Back when shareware actually meant something.
But lets be honest, who actually paid for their "free but please be nice and buy it" utils?
TBH I'm still surprised, and a little bit delighted that WinRAR and WinZIP are still around. I imagine they're stuffed with ads or something now? Almost surpised they didnt try and cram it into a subscription lol
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Being deprived of their massive revenue base is going to be a tough time....
While I understand your comment here is perhaps more in jest, WinRAR appears to be one of those companies who simply doesn't go after everyone who steals their software.
If they did, they'd probably be giving Oracle a run for their money in that department.
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If they did, nobody would be packaging files in that format. It's not like all those .rar files out there were made by paying customers. I would much rather use .zip or .gz for the convenience of OS support. Oh, yeah - Windows has WSL but still didn't bother adding .gz to Windows proper but chose 7z and rar.
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If they did, nobody would be packaging files in that format. It's not like all those .rar files out there were made by paying customers. I would much rather use .zip or .gz for the convenience of OS support.
A planet would much rather assume software like that is forever maintained by volunteers donating their time and effort too.
In a nutshell..people would much rather pay nothing, for something.
Info-ZIP's website needs maintaining (Score:2)
Write portable code once. Done. The last version of Infozip was released 14 years ago
And the maintainers still haven't updated the Info-ZIP website to add an HTTPS download for executables of Zip and UnZip. It's still FTP [sourceforge.net], which web browsers dropped back in 2021. I've found it painful to walk remote coworkers through using the command-line FTP client that comes with Windows.
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Write portable code once. Done. The last version of Infozip was released 14 years ago and included 64-bit file support. The companies out there that need consulting contracts are more than enough to keep free software authors motivated to fix the few things that need fixing.
This is but one article headline across 20+ years of WinRAR:
Over 500 million WinRAR users at risk. Users advised to update WinRAR as soon as possible.
Anyone assuming a "once and done" mentality in today's environment, is asking to be broken. Hard. Are we to assume Infozip has remained bulletproof in over a decade and you have a reason to brag here? Let me know why...
https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/deta... [nist.gov]
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Apparently TAR archive support is coming, and gzip at some point too.
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All of which is supported by 7zFM.exe. Every time Microsoft makes an archiver the performance is abysmal and the UI is tragic, so the only benefit here will be to people who work in an office where they're not allowed to install software, and 7-Zip is not in the install already. That's not nobody, but it doesn't help any home users, who will still be better served by installing 7-Zip.
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The major benefit is that people can finally stop using ZIP for everything because now all major operating systems can open 7Zip archives.
Or at least that will be the case in 2025, when Windows 10 is out of support.
Re: Poor WinRar... (Score:2)
I haven't installed WinRAR since the late 90s.
Re: Poor WinRar... (Score:2)
Ya I was thinking the last time rar had a significant advantage my computer had a ge-force2 and a cd rom
Shortly after some script kiddies decided 7zip was the absolute bomb and somehow that still gets installed on my work PC.
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Same. Last time I installed WinRAR was about the same time I was still installing WinAMP.
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I don't think that many people were "stealing" their software - they just kept dealing with the annoying popups begging you to buy.
Until 7-Zip that is. Once that was out I don't think there was any reason to buy WinRAR anymore - same way built-in Windows Zip support killed the market for WinZip.
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I don't know that they have a "massive revenue base" to lose. But I also suspect that Microsoft is licensing it instead of stealing it. My guess is they are profiting from this, more than they would have by blocking it.
Just a guess, though...
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I'm pretty sure it will be extract-only support, which doesn't require licensing.
I've never cared to create a RAR archive anyways - there are too many other viable formats to worry about it.
Re:Poor WinRar... (Score:5, Informative)
Windows will be able to extract WinRAR archives. However, it won't be able to create them. RAR Labs made the UnRAR code public domain so any archiver can extract the files.
Even though people mock WinRAR, it has its uses. It is a deduplicating archiver with great compression. It also has one feature that nothing else has. The ability to add recovery records, so if a file is damaged, there may be a chance of getting all the archive contents out intact. This has been very useful, as I've had 20+ year WinRAR archives I've restored, and the repair ability ensured the contents were able to be extracted without any issues. Of course, PAR2 can do this, and one can use a filesystem like ZFS or btrfs for checksumming on the FS level, but for ECC that follows the archive, WinRAR is (AFAIK) the only game in town.
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Even though people mock WinRAR
I've not met anyone with a functioning brain who mocks WinRAR. It still is the second program most people install on their computer, and that only because Edge should be used to download only one program (another browser) rather than two.
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Most people? I thought the only people who installed WinRAR were software pirates and script kiddies.
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For the few times I've needed to open a RAR file, I just used 7-Zip.
Re: Poor WinRar... (Score:3)
Nobody installs WinRAR any more, they install 7-Zip. Nobody makes RAR archives any more, they make 7Zs or, if they care about compatibility, ZIPs. WinRAR was great in its day but 7z offers superior compression and multi-thread performance.
Re: Poor WinRar... (Score:2)
Which absolutely no one gives a fuck about when your entire work life is synced to the cloud
Yay I'm going to save 14000us zipping a file that's on one drive
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In this context, that hardly matters. The point is that people either: .zip was good enough, and with libarchive added now the native support has .7z, presumably various tar, .rar support too.
-Just use the default because
-Add 7-zip for a bit more explicit archive management (and until next week, wider support of formats)
In all this, there's zero reason anyone says "I'm going to choose WinZip and/or WinRar as a third-party archive software to install".
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Nobody makes RAR archives any more
That's not true--I see emails with RAR encapsulated malware payloads on a regular basis. Thanks, Microsoft, for making it easier for the user to open those attachments. Maybe you guys could add a preview handler to Outlook to detonate the payload that much faster, too.
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I can't remember the last time I had a corrupted Zip file. Back when telephone modems were king, perhaps. It's nice to have this feature, but I'm not sure I'm likely to encounter any situations where it would be necessary. If your files is corrupted and needs to be restored, you've got a serious problem.
UnRAR is not public domain (Score:2)
RAR Labs made the UnRAR code public domain
Since when? Last I checked, UnRAR was source-available, not public domain or even under a free software license. The term of the license [archive.org] that makes it non-free is as follows:
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I'm not arguing with you but I am wondering, given how old the RAR format is, aren't portions of this license unenforceable. I would wager many if not all the patents related to RAR have expired.
Obviously that's not the same as public domain.
That doesn't matter. If the copyright on the sources is still standing, and the license on the sources says you can't use them for that purpose, then it's a violation of copyright to do so. You have a right to reverse engineer the algorithm for the purposes of interoperability per the DMCA, but that doesn't supersede copyright law so you're going to have to do it by studying the rar binary, and not the unrar sources.
will MS do multi part and par files? (Score:2)
will MS do multi part and par files?
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7-Zip has been able to extract RAR files for a long time, so not many people are likely to be clamoring for native RAR support. If you need it, you already have it, for free.
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I bump into a lot of stuff that uses RAR, sadly. Despite requiring a third party tool, some areas have slowly made this format the default despite how annoying it is, especially when open source alternatives are rare or buggy. It was good I think when windows explorer first supported zip files inherently removing the need for the awful 7zip program, or popping up your GNU alternative in a Cygwin window. 7zip and 7rar always felt like throwbacks to the 80s with shareware (nagging, terrible UI).
Re: Poor WinRar... (Score:2)
There are other sources of revenue. Had to help my friend pay Microsoft literally $1 to be able to open .heic photos in Win10. Make me glad I stopped using Windows back with. . . Wait I never used Windows.
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I'm not sure what they expected, since their "customer" base comprises almost entirely of pirates.
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Note I only predicate it with the word "almost" only so that I can weasel out if someone gives me their esoteric made-up example of that one time they rar'd something legit accidentally.
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Why use a 3rd party compression utility, when the built in one spies on you?
I'd challenge you to prove even 3rd parties can escape this when running on Microsoft Telemetry OS.
The NSA can tell which direction you scratch your ass and with what hand based on mouse movements alone.
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The NSA can tell which direction you scratch your ass and with what hand based on mouse movements alone.
Ah. The ol' "middle-click".
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winrar has had exploits in the past and people looking for 3rd party rar decompressors is a wide open vector for malware distribution .. windows telemetry may be Bad (tm) but people wandering into the woods of the internet to decompress is more self-jeopardizing on the whole to the type of user who will benefit from this
and the smart power users like you don't need to use the built-in .. or windows at all, I guess. I just think worrying about the "spy-ware" aspect of windows telemetry is a nothingburger com
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Sounds like it is third-party (and open source).
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New privacy raping features (Score:1)
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My first thought when I read "next big update" in relation to any Microsoft Windows release is "what privacy-raping features are they shoving down our throats this time round?" I'm sure Copilot will be building a digital profile of us to sell to advertisers. Don't ask it any questions about any product recommendations, or you'll be sure to get spammed with Amazon and eBay adverts for it ad nauseum.
Copilot will be like John Candy in Masters of Menace. "I had to steal all the data. I had to steal all the data to survive!"
Copilot is absolutely going to slurp up everything it possibly can. And I'll bet any amount of money that even if they give you an option to shut it off, it'll only shut off the user interface. It won't shut off the slurping. Because our data belongs to Microsoft.
RAR and 7-zip (Score:2)
I haven't used the RAR format in years, but the 7zip format is more efficient (lzma compression) and therefore is a good thing.
However, I'll still continue to use 7-zip. Even for ZIP files, I prefer the added features (including the right click menu) compared to the file explorer's built-in support.
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I utilize the file hash context menu that 7-zip installs; It's actually the primary reason for installing it these days.
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I still use the RAR archiver for some backups. Mainly because with deduplication, I can use it not just for making archives of a directory, but even add incremental, versioned backups. With some basic scripting, one can use WinRAR to make a decent file backup system with full backups and incrementals, or even just keep adding files to one archive with WinRAR doing deduplication. It also supports modern checksumming with BLAKE2 and AES-256 encryption.
No, it isn't going to compete with Veeam, but it does a
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your system is working and you have no reason to change it, but if you were to start from scratch again, would it be using WinRAR and the RAR format?
Also, are you paying for WinRAR?
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It goes without saying I have paid the registration fee per computer. I still have a key that signs WinRAR archives, back when they supported signing via WinRAR's method (which has been obsoleted for a decade+.) Same with my copy of PKZIP so I can use the "!" option I bought in the 1990s.
If I were starting from scratch, for archiving, I'd keep using WinRAR. Backups are better done by utilities like Veeam, Arq, Borg, Nakivo, and others, but for file archiving, and a secondary backup, I would keep using Wi
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which WinRAR feature do you consider is worth paying for, and by that I mean that isn't available in say, 7-zip or any other free file archiver?
The inclusion of RAR aid in virus detection (Score:3)
Say you got a RAR, either made by yourself, or downloaded, which contain a virus or other malware, unknown at the time of creation.
Since Windows Defender scans compressed files, the fact that RAR files can be scaned now means that, as soon as the signature for said virus is added, it will be detected and Flaged, a win, at least in my book.
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It may prevent someone stupid from forwarding the infected archive to someone else, so in that sense it is a win.
But the anti-virus should be able to catch the executable as soon as it is decompressed anyways. So the risk to the user running Windows Defender is the same.
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Though, to be fair, if there is no file handler for .rar native in the system, that virus payload is not going to be opened, let alone executed.
Now, however, the target is going to be libarchive which the attacker knows will be handling their file.
It's like when .iso suddenly became a native file type in Windows and we started seeing attackers utilize it to bypass filtering.
Copilot (Score:4)
Adding Copilot, cool. Will I be able to disable it?
I don't need or want a "proactive" digital assistant application that will constantly ping me about stuff when I'm busy doing other stuff. Make the stupid thing respond when I need it, and keep quiet when I don't.
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I for one want this. Cortana was useless not because the idea was bad, but because it was incapable of doing anything useful. If Copilot lives up to its hype, it will provide a more straightforward way to access lots of features and settings that were hard to find before.
Re: Copilot (Score:2)
Just search for control panel you'll find what you're looking for.
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Yeah, I know how to search for Control Panel, and I know how to search within Control Panel. Both search features *suck." I'm hoping for a better search this time around.
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It could theoretically be useful. Instead of googling how to disable the latest Microsoft adware baked into the OS, you could just ask the assistant to do it and have the registry hack done automatically.
Unfortunately I doubt it will be so helpful.
Update or new version? (Score:2)
Is this a fix for Win11, or a new version? Description seems to be "Windows 11.23H2 new feature release," rather than patches to fix problems found in version 11.
If I have and like v11, can I just have the patches for what I have, without changing everything, or will this be equivalent to changing to a new operating system, just with the same name?
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Is this a fix for Win11, or a new version?
You're not interested in the answer. Your UID shows that you're not 7 years old and thus will know by now how windows updates have worked and continue to work for the past 11 years.
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did m$ already fix the exploitable code ?
Probably ... while adding more of their own M$ branded exploit holes.
Oh joy, Copilot. /s (Score:1)
Windows Copilot is ... bringing the same Bing Chat feature straight to the Windows 11 desktop.
Great, another thing to disable -- if possible -- so it doesn't spy on or annoy you.
Is that you? (Score:3)
AI-powered Windows Copilot feature
Clippy? Is that you?
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Hello, seems like you're trying to start a new C++ file, do you need some suggestions on how to format it or libraries you should use?
Did they fix the massive latency issue? (Score:2)
Is this updating going to fix the completely broken notification system? It would be nice to have the audio and visual indicators aligned, for once, with the notifications. It would also be nice if the audio didn't trigger 30 seconds or more before the visual notification, and lets n
Re: Did they fix the massive latency issue? (Score:2)
You should have a computer professional take a look at that computer for you.
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If the only issue was the weird latency, then maybe I could overlook it, but the notification system, the time system, even the file system seems to have problems. Windows 11 feels like a home brew project, a
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This is clear user error. It astounds me that you've found success in Linux if you're having such a hard time being competent with Windows.
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If you do a base installation of Windows 11, install nothing but drivers and updates, no software, it will still be ~200% more latent than a Fedora 38 install. I actually thought this was due to a dying drive that was misreporting, because the drive was fairly old, so I replaced the drive with a Samsung 970 Pro, and ran into the exact same problem. Fedora and Windows each have their own Samsung 970 pro, which are ~6 months apart in purchase, so it's a fair comp
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I've got two AM5 Ryzen 7000 systems, with identical motherboard, SSD, comparable RAM-- the difference is one has a modern AMD card, the other has a 1070ti, one has a 7700X, the other has a 7600X. Both were built in the past 6 months.
And I can honestly say, I don't know what the heck you're on about.
My Manjaro (kernel 6.4) system running KDE and my Windows 11 Pro system both run with no noticeable latency. Both open applications at roughly similar speeds, both access my NAS with similar performance-- I use
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There is apparently a bug that's resulted in slow SSD performance that might have been fixed by a recent patch-- search for "SSD bug windows 11".
As for your time, I'm guessing you dual boot, and Linux is set to "Use UTC for system clock", and Windows isn't, and you're 8 hours away from GMT/UTC.
Apparently you aren't aware that if time is out past a certain amount, most time synchronization protocols WILL NOT make such a massive change, as it can have detrimental effects on running software when the time jump
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Info-ZIP (Score:2)
I remember, long long ago (back in the 80's) seeing a new version of Windows suddenly able to handle .zip archives (create, open, etc.). Curious, I did a search of all the Windows files and found a reference (buried in something 'orrible and binary and all) to "Info-ZIP", the online Usenet news letter we were using to create and distribute a public domain version of Phil Katz's ZIP and UNZIP utilities. It didn't stay there for long; later Windows updates apparently cleared that out). But I often wonder i
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Drag and Drop (Score:1)
Would like the drag and drop function to work properly. When I go to drag and drop a file to a folder or into VLC it gets stuck and doesn't drop unless I do it fast and then sometimes it drops.
And having the Windows 10 start menu would be nice.
And having custom folders on the task bar for shortcuts would be nice.
Windows 11's Next Big Update Arrives (Score:5, Funny)
And nothing of value was gained.
As long as I get an update to my shell replacement (Score:1)
Microsoft got sued for bundling stuff in the past (Score:2)
a digital assistant inside Windows
I can't wait for other AI companies to sue Microsoft for anticompetitive behavior.
Of course, they'll all lose and go bankrupt before the case even reaches the judge, just like Netscape...
Some glorious day, the US will finally start breaking up monopolies again like they used to half a century ago. Maybe...
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Windows 11? No thanks. (Score:2)
Just reloaded my system back to Win10 after one of Windows updates' patches completely TANKED disk subsystem performance.
It took me about 50 hours to copy 7TB of files off. And once the OS reloaded was done, it took 4 hours to put it all back.
I went Win11 initially because some of my clients were seeing it more.
The Win11 UI is a cluster fuck.
Just to be able to run the desktop, it required 3rd party software for an operable Taskbar.
Add the SSD bug and I was done. It rendered a 16 core, 64GB, all SSD machin
Win needs AI to let users manage it (Score:2)
Copilot could put a dent into all those people doing Windows Tech Support trying to figure out the gazillion settings on Windows to turn off all the rest of the crap Microsoft built into the OS. "Hey Copilot, turn off all Windows services I have not used in the last 5 days."
Redesigned File Explorer... (Score:2)
Tab were nice, and long overdue. But usually "redesigned" means "we felt like we should change something, so we made it worse."
Fear the update (Score:2)
Of course do they ever fix any real problems like the green bar of slowness or just general s
THEIR or OUR libarchive? (Score:2)
Microsoft has a tendency to make "their" standards juuuust that liiiitle different then the rest of the world, and then that becomes the standard. Of course they won't return their "improvements" to the rest of the community, that would mean others would be able to... you know... actually compete.
I'm worried what they'll do to libarchive.
Mostly love this upgrade news. (Score:1)
Nope. (Score:2)
vertical taskbar? (Score:1)