Is There a Zara Update

I checked and if it is from Kero Systems it's legit. There seems to be as you saw a 1.6.6 to include operation with Windows 11 but I saw on the Zara forum(Facebook) that the 1.6.2 will work fine on Windows 11. I myself had asked about that in case I had to get a computer with Windows 11. The 1.6.6 seems to be available via Softonic which has to get it from the developer. But maybe Carl, you have a legitimate concern as this new version is not on the ZaraStudio site.
The version I have and all of us have that has been around for years now works fine and I have no need to change as any updates or new versions will just do the same as I have now so if it's not broke don't fix it. I briefly switched to Salamandra on suggestion from Johny C but when there was a few things I didn't like I wondered what was wrong with what I had before and switched back.

Since Mark found the update to be seemingly real, I have downloaded it and will be installing it later today. Upon reading some descriptions, I think one useful addition is that AAC files will play. I got mine from CNET.

Two hours later I am back, having downloaded what was supposed to be Version 1.6.6.

However, after uninstalling V 1.6.2 and going through all the steps, I still have the same version as before except that my day's playlist is gone and I still cannot use AAC audio files.

Therefore the idea of a 'new version' is now in doubt.

I just went to Softonic and selected to download what was shown as 1.6.6 and it showed 1.6.6 in the download window. At set up it said installing 1.6.2 after the first do you want this to make changes etc.
So aborted and seems from that the 1.6.6 doesn't exist. I did this on my regular computer I am on now not the broadcast one.

As far as I'm aware, the Zara 1.6.2 version is the latest free one.  Everything after that is payware.

I'm curious as to what Mark doesn't like about Salamandra.  It's a bit rough around the edges re installation, but everything else seems to work fine.  It's also more stable and has fewer bugs than Zara (imo), and plays far more file types.

I ran into a problem installing the latest version of Salamandra fresh from github.  No matter what I did, it installed in Italian, and I couldn't figure out the settings to get it back to English (apparently it reads in a settings file at startup, and it obviously specified Italian).  But no problem, I installed the older version which had no problems with English, and then installed the new version over top (keeping the old settings file).  Other than that, no real issues.

I've also found Softonic (and to be fair, a lot of other download sites) to be rather loose about their version numbers.

I have tried Play it live, Zara, and Salamandra and in a past post I detailed my personal preferences with the pros and cons of all three. As for the other file formats MP3s are compatible with everything and good enough so not important if it doesn't support certain other formats. Zara keeps running 24/7 without a glitch. Events work perfect. The only time it rarely ever stopped was because of a file it didn't like in the playlist which displays with this symbol ----+---- instead of the time of track/file on the right column. Once you root out those 1 or 2 files and re-download again from different source or in the case of all my OTR dramas I quickly scanned for any that have that corrupted symbol, took about 10-15 minutes to do it with about 2500 various episodes and caught one, just one, so just deleted that one.

Here was my evaluation of 3 I have used, pros and cons.
https://www.part15.org/community/general-discussion/returning-to-zara/#post-56871

That fake Zara install has been around for years. Theres another where someone had reskinned it and it looked like crap. There have been no new versions for years. Be care full about versions that say they are new versions, they could contain something nasty. There are fake Zarastudio ones as well but they are only Zararadio.

The one big con against Zara is that it's a dead program - no more development.  What you have now (and have had for some time) is what you get.

Salamandra is under active development, so expect to see bug fixes, new features, etc.  And it doesn't have the Zara bug where you have to change the output device every time on startup if you're not using standard output (which is a real pain).

I'll continue using Salamandra.

I had to delete a registry key every few weeks because Zara would not hold any settings I had in, it did this for all the pc's I had it installed on, so it was not a 1 pc problem. I then could restart Zara and redo all my settings I wanted and then in a few weeks the same again untill I deleted the reg key again. It would not hold any settings than the ones in it all ready. I would redo the settings, shut it down and the next time I opened it settings were all gone again. I still use it to make playlists as its quicker than using Salamandra for that.
Here's the reg key

Computer\HKEY_USERS\S-1-5-21-1472530459-86897747-3146395050-1001_Classes\VirtualStore\MACHINE\SOFTWARE\WOW6432Node\ZaraSoft

Im staying with Salamandra, it runs rings around Zara.

Another thing it would do is stuff up the events and I'd had to reload the event file.

Can Salamandra be setup to take a network feed, via internet? And compared to Zara is there any type of difficult learning curves? I'm updating computer and station hardware within next couple months just need to know for planning.

@wefr Johny is the expert here, but imo Salamandra is Zara on steroids, so you should be able to do everything Zara can do and lots more.

Yes Salamandra will play network feeds even AAC streams which Zara cant. There are some things to learn but if you are used to Zara you can work them out easy. Uses the same files, .rot.seg and all the other playlist files. Only thing you will have to do is make a new event file as the one from Zara will not load. Best to use the standalone version which you dont have to install. Easy to back up. Can be run wherever you put the folder. Uses the same time files if you used them in Zara.