WinRAR is one of the most popular archive management tools. It provide support for RAR. ZIP and other formats.

Great feature of the WinRAR program is that it allows to protect the archives with the password.

This article describes a process of creating a password protected archive. You should have WinRAR installed in order to be able to create WinRAR archive.

WinRAR lets you encrypt your archive with a 128 bit key. It is recommended to set the password with more than 8 characters.

1. Select the files  you want to add to the archive and right mouse click on them. Choose "Add to archive" option.

 2. In WinRAR dialog window go to Advanced Tab and choose the option "Set password"

 3. Enter your password.
If you choose the option "Show password", you'll be able to read the password and it will not be marked with asterisks.

The option "Encrypt filenames"; will show a password prompt right when the archive is opened, without showing the files it contains.

 4. Now you have password protected archive. This type of archives are marked with asterisks.