On Windows 11
Windows 11 already opens RAR. So what is this for?
A fair question, and the answer is not that Explorer is bad. It is that Explorer does one archive, one way, and stops at the first archive with a password on it.
What Windows 11 does on its own
Microsoft's own guidance is clear: Windows 11 version 24H2 "supports ZIP, RAR, 7z and TAR archive formats" in File Explorer. Right-click, Extract All, done. For a single ordinary archive that is genuinely all most people need, and if that is you, you do not need this or anything like it. TheWindows 11 unzip guide gives the full built-in steps.
The same page adds the limit that matters: File Explorer "does not support operations on encrypted archive files", and points people at separate software for those.
| Task | File Explorer, Windows 11 24H2 | EasyUnZip |
|---|---|---|
| Extract a ZIP | Yes | Yes |
| Extract a RAR | Yes, from 24H2 | Yes, on Windows 10 too |
| Extract 7z and TAR | Yes, from 24H2 | No - ZIP and RAR only |
| Password-protected archives | No - Microsoft direct you elsewhere | Yes, asked once per session |
| Twenty archives, each into its own folder | One at a time | One pass |
| Extract only the .jpg files | No | Yes |
| Decide overwrite / skip / keep both, once | Per file | Per job |
| Create archives | Yes | No |
| Price | Included with Windows | $3 once, after 14 days free |
Where the friction actually is
Not in extracting one ZIP. It is in the seventeenth one: the folder of camera-club RARs that each need their own subfolder, the archive with a password on it, the one made on a Mac whose paths Windows refuses, the one where you want the photographs and not the four hundred RAW files sitting beside them.
Explorer's answer to all of those is the same - extract everything, everywhere, then tidy up by hand. EasyUnZip's is to ask the three questions once and then not bother you again.
If you are still on Windows 10
None of the 24H2 improvements apply to you. Windows 10 File Explorer opens ZIP and nothing else, so RAR still means installing something. EasyUnZip runs on Windows 10 build 1809 and later, and behaves identically on both - the requirements are here.
Which build am I on?
Settings → System → About, under Windows specifications. "Version" reads 24H2, 23H2 and so on. If it is below 24H2, Explorer will not open a RAR whatever this page says about it.
Honest summary: if you extract one ordinary ZIP a month on Windows 11 24H2, use File Explorer. EasyUnZip is for people for whom archives are a chore that repeats, and it is free for 14 days precisely so you can find out which of those you are before paying anything.