Windows offers a feature to compress files by supporting Zip functionality. While it is a very useful feature, you might be using some third-party compression utility, so you may want to disable Windows built-in Zip support, and let the external zip program be associated with the zip file format.
In Windows XP, this solution worked. All you needed to do was to unregister a dll file. Open the
Run box, type the following and hit Enter:
regsvr32 /u %windir%\system32\zipfldr.dll
To enable the built-in zip capability, run the following command:
regsvr32 %windir%\system32\zipfldr.dll
This may not work in Windows Vista and later, as unregistering of that particular dll file is unsupported in these later operating systems, like Windows 7 and Windows 8. If you try it, you will receive an error message.
Disable Windows built-in Zip support in Windows 7 | 8
To disable Windows built-in Zip support in Windows Vista, Windows 7, Windows 8, you will need to open
regedit and delete the following two registry keys:
To disable support for zip files delete this key:
HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\CLSID\{E88DCCE0-B7B3-11d1-A9F0-00AA0060FA31}
The Windows Registry may not allow you to delete these keys easily. You may need to take ownership of these registry keys. I suggest you use our RegOwnIt to do so easily.
If you have other zip or file compression software installed, you may want to consider disabling this built-in zip support, to save some resources.
Goes without saying –
create a system restore point first!
