Zip Folders - Enable or Disable Windows Explorer View

Disable Explorer Folder View of Cab and Zip Files in Vista, Windows 7, and Windows 8​

   Information

By default, Windows handles ZIP files just like folders. ZIP files will show in the navigation pane of Windows Explorer, and if selected in the navigation pane, you will see the ZIP file's contents in Windows Explorer just like a folder.

If you have a 3rd party ZIP program (ex: 7-Zip, etc.) installed, then this can be an annoyance to you and you may want to turn this feature off so ZIP files will only open in the program instead of Windows Explorer.

This tutorial will show you how to enable or disable ZIP folders (compressed and cab folders) from having their contents expand and show in Windows Explorer like folders for all users.

   Note

Compressed (ZIP) folders and Cab folders are enabled by default to have their content expand and display in Windows Explorer folder view like normal folders.

If disabled, you will only be able to open ZIP and CAB files and extract/view their contents with a 3rd party program (ex: 7-Zip, etc.). You will only see the ZIP and CAB files in Windows Explorer.

   Warning

This can only be done while logged on to an administrator account.

EXAMPLE: Zip Folders (compressed and cab folders) Enabled and Disabled




Here's How:

1. Do step 2 and/or 3 or step 4 and/or 5 below for what you would like to do.

2. To Enable ZIP Compressed Folders
NOTE: This is the default setting.
A) Click/tap on the Download button below to download the file below, and go to step 6 below.
Enable_ZIP_Compressed_Folders.reg


Download


3. To Enable CAB Folders
NOTE: This is the default setting.
A) Click/tap on the Download button below to download the file below, and go to step 6 below.
Enable_CAB_Files.reg

Download


4. To Disable ZIP Compressed Folders
A) Click/tap on the Download button below to download the file below, and go to step 6 below.
Disable_ZIP_Compressed_Folders.reg


Download


5. To Disable CAB Folders
A) Click/tap on the Download button below to download the file below, and go to step 6 below.
Disable_CAB_Files.reg

Download


6. Save the .reg file to your desktop.

7. Double click/tap on the downloaded .reg file to merge it.

8. If prompted, click on Run, Yes (UAC Windows 7/8) or Continue (UAC Vista), Yes, and OK when prompted.

9. Log out and in, or restart the PC to apply.


That's it,
Shawn

Related Tutorials

---

• How To Zip (Compress) a File or Folder in Windows
• How to Enable or Disable Zip Extracted Show Files Window

 

[Brink]

Hello Pgriffet, and welcome to Seven Forums.

Are you using the built-in ZIP feature in Windows 7, or some 3rd party ZIP program?

Go through the steps again in case you may have made a mistake, and go ahead and enable CAB folders as well. You may need to restart the computer afterwards for it to be applied.

Hope this helps for now,
Shawn

 

[pgriffet]

Hi Shawn, thanks for the answer.
Actually, Winrar was installed on my PC when I purchased it and I 've uninstalled winrar.
I use to handle all my files with Total Commander(TC), a File Manager very powerful, with dozens of built-in functions (batch rename, handling lots of archives, FTP, compare files, split or join files, and son on). This tool is a shareware but the only "limitation" is a nag screen at start, you have full access to all the commands, even if you don't buy it. Total Commander - home
TC doesn't interfer in the zip handling as it has it's own dll to handle it.
But sometimes, if I only have to extract a file from a zip archive, I would like to use the built-in explorer function and I can't.
I will go through the steps again.

Well, the problem is solved.
I choose "open with.." in the context menu of a zip file in explorer and I had only Explorer as choice, so I check the box "always open" (don't know the right text in English), I clicked ok and I can now open my zip with Explorer !
Anyway, thanks for helping me.
I will open a new thread about the "save as.." option in IE which gives always .mht filetype as first choice, which is for me painful. I would like to have web page (as in IE6) as default but I think it's not possible, except with a third party tool.

 

[Brink]

That's great news Pgriffet. I'm happy to hear that you got it sorted.

 

[joeyconnick]

Are you sure it's not (for 64-bit Win 7):

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Classes\Wow6432Node\CLSID\{E88DCCE0-B7B3-11d1-A9F0-00AA0060FA31}\ShellFolder

Because I have one of those but not one of these:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Wow6432Node\Classes\CLSID\{E88DCCE0-B7B3-11d1-A9F0-00AA0060FA31}\ShellFolder

 

[Brink]

Hello Joey, and welcome to Seven Forums.

I'm 100% positive. I have it at both locations by default, but the path below would be the one to delete to disable it. Do you have the entry for CAB folders here?

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Wow6432Node\Classes\CLSID\{E88DCCE0-B7B3-11d1-A9F0-00AA0060FA31}\ShellFolder

Doing step 1 in OPTION TWO will restore the entry above though if you wanted to enable it.

Hope this helps,
Shawn

 

[joeyconnick]

Hello Joey, and welcome to Seven Forums.

I'm 100% positive. I have it at both locations by default, but the path below would be the one to delete to disable it. Do you have the entry for CAB folders here?

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Wow6432Node\Classes\CLSID\{E88DCCE0-B7B3-11d1-A9F0-00AA0060FA31}\ShellFolder

Nope, I definitely don't have that one... I just checked. Zip folders are now gone from the Explorer but are still showing up in Open... dialogs.

 

[joeyconnick]

So I had this one:

HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Wow6432Node\CLSID\{E88DCCE0-B7B3-11d1-A9F0-00AA0060FA31}\ShellFolder

and deleted it... now we'll see if it solves zip files showing as folders in the Open/Save As dialogs.

And it did... dont' know if it's a difference between Windows 7 Pro and Ulti but honestly I didn't have the ones specified in the instructions.

 

[Brink]

That's fine Joey. Glad to hear that you got it sorted.

 

[Stuart CDS]

Instead of deleting the whole thing, just turning off the "I'm a folder" bit works for me:

[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\CLSID\{E88DCCE0-B7B3-11d1-A9F0-00AA0060FA31}\ShellFolder]
"Attributes"="dword:000001a0" ; was 200001a0

[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Wow6432Node\CLSID\{E88DCCE0-B7B3-11d1-A9F0-00AA0060FA31}\ShellFolder]
"Attributes"="dword:000001a0" ; was 200001a0

 

[fstyle]

Thank You!

Thanks for this tutorial!

After reviewing it, I decided te delete only the Default Value of:
HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\CompressedFolder\ShellEx\StorageHandler

So Explorer won't refer to {E88DCCE0-B7B3-11d1-A9F0-00AA0060FA31}
After logout - login it did it's job and it's easier to roll back the changes.

Thanks again, it was very useful!

 

[Brink]

You're most welcome fstyle, and welcome to Seven Forums.

 

[waywyrd]

Disable Windows ZIP

Thanks. This worked great.

 

[Brink]

Glad to hear it helped waywyrd, and welcome to Seven Forums.

 

[Magissia]

Hello, i managed to restore this (windows explorer handling zip) only by choosing "explorer.exe" as default program for .zip (start, default program, look for zip, change to explorer.exe)

I think it's more simple to do it that way.

 

[Brink]

Hello Magissia,

Thank you for your post.

That would be fine if it was only an association issue, but it wouldn't help to undo the tutorial. Plus, the tutorial will affect all users.

 

[MRCS]

Starting from here xplorer² blog: How to unregister zipfolders for windows 7/8 I found the easiest way was to rename this key to HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\SystemFileAssociations\.zip\CLSID.bak *and* this key to HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\CompressedFolder\CLSID.bak Doesn't show up in "Save As" either.

 

[Brink]

Thank you MRCS.

That is much easier to do. I've updated the tutorial for this for both ZIP and CAB files.

 

[oamilkar]

Also, If you don't want to restart you can open task manager to kill and rerun explorer.exe

 

[Alex4]

I haven't tried the .reg files yet, but why does Enable_CAB_Files.reg contain minus signs preceding the path names unlike Enable_ZIP_Compressed_Folders.reg?

 

[Brink]

I haven't tried the .reg files yet, but why does Enable_CAB_Files.reg contain minus signs preceding the path names unlike Enable_ZIP_Compressed_Folders.reg?

Thank you. Fixed.