Windows to Get Native RAR File Support, Controls for RGB Lighting
To open compressed files or control the RGB lighting on your PC accessories, you usually need to download a third-party app. But Microsoft is now working to bake these functions into Windows 11.
Microsoft Chief Product Officer Panos Panay quietly mentioned the upcoming improvements in a blog post(Opens in a new window) outlining announcements from the company's Build conference.
“We have added native support for additional archive formats, including tar, 7-zip, rar, gz and many others using the libarchive open-source project,” he wrote. “You now can get improved performance of archive functionality during compression on Windows.”
That means users won’t need to download WinRAR, a free and popular compression tool that can open various file formats. Microsoft told(Opens in a new window) The Verge the native support should arrive through a Windows preview build later this week.
Panay also confirmed that Microsoft is working on a universal app within Windows to control all the RGB lighting on your PC accessories. Back in February, a user spotted Microsoft testing the new lighting controls in a Windows Insider preview build.
Panay said: “Today, many of these accessories rely on third-party apps and integrations that are highly fragmented. With Dynamic Lighting, Windows users will be able to effortlessly set up and customize their devices with RGB lights directly from Windows Settings.”
The company will release the Dynamic Lighting controls this month to beta users enrolled in the Windows Insider program. It's unclear which PC peripherals will be supported. But Panay noted that developers and hardware partners will be able to experiment with the Dynamic Lighting feature for RGB accessories and components. So it’s possible
Read more on pcmag.com
