The Windows 11 operating system will soon receive a long-awaited update: support for RAR and 7-ZIP archives and many file types. Also, an artificial intelligence (AI) assistant based on GPT-4 will be integrated into the system in the coming months.

RAR and 7-ZIP support

Users have been waiting for Windows 11 to support RAR and 7-ZIP archives for more than a decade, writes The Verge. Earlier Windows operating systems only had built-in support for ZIP archives, and users had to install third-party applications to work with other archives.

"We've added built-in support for additional archive formats, including tar, 7-zip, rar, gz, and more, using the libarchive open source project," said Panos Panay, Windows CEO.

He added that the corporation will also improve the performance of the archiving functions when compressing files using the Windows tool.

Support for the new formats will be available to users starting this week with a new preview version of Windows 11.

An embedded neural network based on GPT-4

In the summer, the operating system will receive another interesting update in the form of an assistant working with Windows Copilot AI.

According to Microsoft, the AI-powered assistant is similar to the AI dashboards that are already available in the Edge browser, Office, and GitHub. Windows Copilot will enable Windows 11 users to interact with the AI assistant in any app or program.

This innovation is a sidebar that can be launched from the taskbar and pinned to the left or right edge of the screen. The AI assistant will be able to analyze the content on the computer screen and suggest different actions depending on what the user is working on. For example, it can help you summarize, paraphrase or explain text or an image, change system settings, open an app, check for updates, and more.

Windows Copilot is based on GPT-4 and supports Bing Chat and ChatGPT plugins.

Microsoft plans to start testing Windows Copilot for Windows Insider program participants in June. However, it is not yet known when the innovation will be available to a wide range of users.