Vista ZIP file association problem Options

[amenx]

Theres a huge blunder here it seems, the ZIP file association is non-existent in Vistas default programs panel. The list of file associations does not include ZIP (at least with my V.Ultimate installation). And watch out if you associate a ZIP file thru a 3rd party compression app, i.e., WinRAR, IZarc, etc, theres no way to get back Windows default compression function (thru conventional means)! You cant use the 'open with' command because the compressed folder function in Vista is not thru some executable file that you can browse to to associate with! I only managed to get it back by restoring a reg backup!

[amenx]

I had posted also this in the Vista communities and just received a reply by Ramesh (MVP):

Hi amenx,

Click Start, type regedit.exe and press Enter.
Navigate to the following branch:

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\FileExts\.zip

Delete the sub-key named "UserChoice"

Close Regedit.exe

If that does not help, get the .zip file association fix from here:

File association fixes for Windows Vista:
http://www.winhelponline.com/articles/105/1/

Well to try it out I re-associated the zip with WinRAR and tried the above reg edit and it works. Theres a bunch of reg fixes in the link Ramesh provided for various file extensions as well.