Solved Cannot download zip files

[timcolonel]

Hello all,
My posting here is my last resort...
A while back, I was downloading a zip folder hoping to retrieve word documents within. I inadvertently chose to download the folder as a music document. (I do not recall how or why I was given this option or even at what stage of the downloading process it was presented to me.) Since that time, every zip folder I attempt to download OR CREATE visually appears as a single music file on my desktop. Needless to say, I cannot open this, or do anything with it but delete it. I have tried changing the default so that it opens as something else (I chose Word document) but not instead of downloading as a single music file, it downloads as a single Word doc. Any ideas? I'll express my embarrassment ahead of time as I'm guessing this is a pretty easy fix. Thanks folks,
Tim

 

[windows8]

Do you have winrar or 7zip, or any other .zip file opener program installed?

Download winrar, then go back to the page where you select the default opener, and choose winrar as the main opener.

http://www.rarlab.com/download.htm

 

[timcolonel]

No, I have none of those installed. Shouldn't I be able to download and create zip files without anything but windows? I've never downloaded or installed anything else. It seems to me it would be an immediate change with Windows - not something I have to bring in from the "outside". The option that I chose I while back that started this problem was presented in a Windows window, nothing foreign to the system. Can't I simply reverse the change I made on my system? (I do not download much, maybe a folder here and there containing simple files - I've installed very little on my system, certainly nothing that would affect zip folder manipulation.)

 

[windows8]

Nope actually, its pretty much impossible to do anything with a .zip file without one of those programs.

The computer will be back to normal once you download winrar or another .zip/.rar opening program and allow it to work with the downloads.

 

[timcolonel]

Great - thank you for clearing that up. I'll try getting my system back with winrar now.

 

[Cytherian]

While WinRar and WinZip are useful programs, you can still do normal file compression and uncompression with the built-in utility. In your particular case, installing a 3rd party program still leaves the built-in one with configuration issues. I'd recommend fixing that, as a trustworthy baseline. Otherwise, if you ever decide to uninstall WinRar or WinZip, you'll be back to the problem again.

When you say "music file", do you mean with an MP3 extension to it? Or does it look like a music folder with a little music icon for it instead of the default folder? It definitely sounds like the file association for compressed (zip) files is erroneously reassigned.

What you may want to try doing first is to redefine the default Zip file support (click HERE).

If this doesn't work, you may need to fix it with resetting all default file type associations (click HERE).

Alternatively, you could try editing the registry directly for the ZIP file association:

• Click Start, type regedit.exe and press Enter.
• Navigate to the following branch:
  HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\Curre ntVersion\Explorer\FileExts\.zip
• Delete the sub-key named "UserChoice"
• Close Regedit.exe

 

[timcolonel]

Thank you, Cytherian.

To answer your question, it looked like a "music...[file]...with a little music icon for it instead of the default folder". I was too timid to change anything with the registry, so I restored the built-in ZIP File Support using zipfix_vista.reg and it fixed my problem immediately. I sincerely thank you for your time - this is a great help.

 

[Cytherian]

Hi TimColonel, I'm very glad to hear that the problem has been resolved. If you can, please mark the thread as "solved." And thank you for coming back to let us know!