Ever since some Vista designers decided it was a cool idea to make zip files show up as folders in the left hand (tree view) pane of WIndows Explorer, I've been irked by it. For cryin' out loud fellahs, they're NOT folders. If they were folders, we'd call them that. Folders can be used as-is; zip files must be decompressed to be used. Besides that, double-clicking the file doesn't actually do anything except open it for viewing, when you try to use anything in the file you're faced with a Windows wizard. Yum.

The following key needs to be deleted from the registry:

For zip files delete the regkey
HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\CLSID\{E88DCCE0-B7B3-11d1-A9F0-00AA0060FA31}

When you try to delete this key, you will almost certainly get an "access denied" or "failed" type of message. Before you can delete it, you need to change the permissions/ownership properties. Here is how to do it:

1. open regedit from the RUN console
2. navigate to the first key that needs to be deleted (HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\CLSID\{E88DCCE0- B7B3-11d1-A9F0-00AA0060FA31})
3. highlight the key
4. click file->export in the regedit menu and save the key to someplace on your HD where you can find it. If you ever decide you want to revert out of this fix, you'll just doule-click the exported reg file and reboot.
5. After you've exported your backup, right click on the key and select "Permissions"
6. click on "Advanced"
7. click on the "Ownership" tab
8. in the "change owner to" section, highlight your username
9. check the box for "replace owner on subcontainers and objects"
10. click on "Apply"
11. Click "OK"
12. Under "Security" tab, highlight your username and check the box for "Allow Full Control" (located mid-menu in the "Permissions For Administrators" section
13. click "Apply" and "OK"
14. you can now delete the registry key. MAKE SURE YOU ARE ON THE CORRECT KEY!
15. reboot