ZIP files work somewhat like folders in that they “contain” files, so it’s not surprising that they’re represented as folders in Windows Explorer. But a ZIP file is typically smaller than the sum of its contents, thanks to the ZIP compression scheme. (Of course, other standards, like RAR, offer much better compression, but Vista doesn’t support .rar files without a third-party utility.)

And if you wish to turn off Zip Support for Windows Vista, Try these steps!

Download the vistaunzip.reg file at http://www.annoyances.org/exec/download/vistaunzip.reg, and save it to your desktop. Double-click the vistaunzip.reg file, click Continue (if prompted), then click Yes, and then click OK in the final confirmation window. Restart Windows for the change to take effect.

If you want to turn ZIP support back on, download vistazip.reg from http://www.annoyances.org/exec/download/vistazip.reg, and double-click it as just described.

If you’re interested in trying out the Registry hack by hand, and If you’d rather disable Vista’s built-in ZIP support by hand than have to download files, follow these steps:

1. Open the Registry Editor (regedit).

2. Expand the branches to HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\CLSID.

3. Delete these two keys in this branch:

{E88DCCE0-B7B3-11d1-A9F0-00AA0060FA31}

{0CD7A5C0-9F37-11CE-AE65-08002B2E1262}

4. When you’re done, close Registry Editor and then restart Windows for the change to take effect.