about ".rar" files ???????

You need to install a program to do it, WinRar is popular but I prefer 7-Zip because it supports about a dozen different formats.

http://www.7-zip.org/download.html

http://www.rarlab.com/download.htm

well basically .rar files are just multiple files that are packed into one file for transport.

You can install winrar and then double click the .rar file and it will show you the multiple files..if you have files that are number like .01, .02 and so one then that is when a rather large file has been split into multiple files to extract those double click the top file to see inside the compress file...you should get something like a regular file...drag and drop that to your desktop and winrar will automatically decompress those files together again for you....once it is complete the many small files will be all placed back together for you on your desktop.

If you want to package up some files to a .rar files then just right click on the file and choose add to archive.

rar files are archive files similar to .zip for winzip or .tar.gz/tar.bz2 in Linux. You need a program to open these such as WinRAR which is shareware unless you buy it which is not worth it. Or you can use the GPL 7-zip with is free.

rar files are not executable.

you "open" them using an application that can handle them, such as peazip, which is an application that allows you to extract files from an archive (RAR files are archives of files) in several different formats (zip among these)

http://peazip.sourceforge.net/

there is no option for .rar file in xp. only zip file.

http://www.download.com/WinRAR/3000-2250_4-1000767...

http://www.soft82.com/download/Windows/WinRAR

no you need the program "WinRAR" to open them. you can get it free here

http://www.rarlab.com/download.htm