WinRAR is trying to show their appreciation to everyone for making them the “best overall utility” according to the Shareware Industry Awards Foundation. They are giving everyone a single-user license which is valued at $29. The only bad part is that the license is non-upgradeable so you will not be able to update the program.
The software, as most people know, normally offers a trial version which has an annoying nag screen. You can finally get rid of that but the problem is that the download site where you need to register at cannot handle all of the traffic. I had to refresh the screen about 20 times before I finally got the registration screen up but then you have to submit the information to them. After hitting Submit I had to continuously refresh and say OK to “resending the POSTDATA…” popup each time. I finally got through though.
Once you do actually get it to go through it will email you a link to the key that you need. Well, there is a little trick that will save you some time and actually skip the whole registration process. The link they send you includes a unique ID but it doesn’t really matter what it is, so just use this URL:
http://www.win-rar.com/bestoverallutility/download.php?id=XXXXXXXXXXXXX
and replace the X’s with a bunch of numbers or letters. Just keep refreshing that URL and eventually it will popup to download the registration file. The registration file can be downloaded twice using the same ID. Once you download the registration file just go ahead and run it. Yes, it is that easy.
They took down this offer very quickly it would seem BUT using the method you describe in your blog post a key can still be obtained even though the website says the offer is no longer available. Not sure how much longer it will work but I thought others might want to know if they haven’t seen the post yet.
Thanks for the tip man. Even though the site says the promo is over, I still got a free registration thanks to you!!
Wow, kinda funny that this little tip still works but I am glad it does. If anyone notices that it does not work anymore please post so that everyone knows not to bother trying. I just checked and it is still working.
-Ryan
I thought I’d missed my chance but thanks to your nice pointer I was still able to get that registration file. Thanks a lot!!
[win-rar.com]
I just copied and pasted the link as per above and it gave me the rarkey download without replacing the xxxxxxxxxxxxx with letters or numbers.
Hope all find this useful.
@it
Thanks for the tip. When I download the file, inside the archive is a registry file. What do I do? Double-click and click ‘yes’ on the prompt (Add info to registry)? Or do I put that file in a specific folder?
You need to put it in your WinRAR installation folder. It isn’t really a registry key even though it says it could be imported into your registry. That should work for you.
-Ryan
I don’t think people can download the WinRAR key this way anymore. It wasn’t working for me at least.
-Ryan
best zip software
cool thats ansome
didnt work
GOOOODDDDDDDD!!!!!
Doesn’t work. =\
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