I've Googled around for this, including within this group... and while I see others asking the same question, I've yet to come across a definitive answer. Hopefully someone will know.
How can I prevent ZIP files from appearing in Explorer's folder pane (the pane on the left)?
I have some folders that contain a LOT of ZIP files and opening one of those folders means that the left/folder pane suddenly gets crowded full of those files.
I've got both WinRAR and WinZIP 11 and associating ZIP files with either of those makes no difference. It will change the app that opens them when I double-click one and it changes the icon used when they appear in the files list but it doesn't change the fact that they're being displayed as if they're folders.
I'd really like to find a solution to this as having all those ZIP files in the folders pane makes it really hard to navigate around the parts of the files system I use most.
Thanks,
JD
PS - I've seen lots of people asking how to return the file association from something else back to Vista's built-in support for ZIP files. That one actually does have an answer and it appears to be... open a command line prompt as an Administrator and run the command "assoc .zip=CompressedFolder" (without the quotes). This re- associates the extension with the built-in CompressedFolder handler which is mostly getting on my nerves because I want it to behave like a CompressedFILE handler.

As an administrator, run Regedit.
Navigate to:
HKLM\SOFTWARE\Classes\CLSID\{E88DCCE0-B7B3-11d1-A9F0-00AA0060FA31}\ShellFolder
Edit the value of 'Attributes', changing it from 0x200001a0 to 0x000001a0.
Logoff & log back on.
Good Luck,
Keith Microsoft MVP [Windows XP Shell/User]
"jdonnici"

Very usefull answer. Thank you very much
Jessy Weesp,Netherlands
On Wed, 25 Apr 2007 00:03:49 -0500, "Keith Miller MVP" wrote:

I noticed after I posted this. You can still right-click & extract the contents but this edit seems to break the ability to view the zip files contents in explorer.
Good Luck,
Keith Microsoft MVP [Windows Shell/User]