In this dialog you can describe a new compression profile or edit parameters of an existing profile. It contains the following items:
The profile name is a text string describing a profile. It may contain space characters, for example, the name "Create e-mail attachment" is valid. It is recommended to give sensible names to profiles, it simplifies their identification and management. This field is required and cannot be empty
If this option is on, the archive name specified in the field below is saved in the profile and will be restored when selecting this profile. If the option is off, an archive name will be proposed by WinRAR, as usual.
If this option is on, the file names specified in the field below are saved in the profile. So if you select the profile later, WinRAR will compress files saved in the profile instead of files selected before activating the profile.
Initially this field contains names of files currently selected in WinRAR file list, but you may edit them or enter new names here. Folder names and wildcards are allowed. For example, you may create a profile containing "C:\" as the selected file name to backup the whole C: disk.
If this option is off, WinRAR will compress currently selected files.
If a profile is marked as default, it will be automatically selected when opening the Archive name and parameters dialog before every archiving operation. It is convenient to create a default profile with your favorite compression options, so you do not need to set them every time. Only one profile can be set as default. If no profiles are marked as default, the archiving dialog will be initialized by the standard set of archiving options.
Some parameters of default compression profile are used not only when adding files to archive, but in other archive modification operations like deleting or renaming files. In this case WinRAR reads only those parameters, which are suitable for current operation. Extraction does not use any options from the default compression profile.
If you select a profile having the Immediate execution parameter set on, the archiving operation will be started immediately, without possibility to modify compression settings or an archive name. It can be useful for routine compression operations, because you do not need to press the "OK" button every time after selecting such a profile.
This option is available only if Save selected file names option is enabled. If selected, WinRAR will create the icon with a profile name on Desktop, so you may activate a profile later simply clicking on this icon. For example, you may create a profile to backup your data and put its icon to the Desktop to simplify this operation.
If this option is on, the profile name will be displayed in Explorer context menus allowing to activate a profile from them. If you also set the Immediate execution profile option, archiving will start immediately after choosing a profile in context menu. If Immediate execution is off, you will see Archive name and parameters dialog first. If Save archive name is on, WinRAR will use the saved name for new archive. If Save selected file names is on, both names stored in profile and names selected in Explorer will be added to archive.