Apologies for the bad grammar above but “unassociate” was the keyword I used to find a fix to my computer problem this morning.

Some time ago I installed WinZip to extract .zip files. I’m not sure why I did that except that I must have been unable to figure out how to use Windows Vista to open zip files. Anyway, the trial version of WinZip expired and to get it working again, I would have had to pay $29.95.

I was about 2 seconds away from doing so after a fruitless search trying to figure out an easy way to de-associate my zip files from WinZip and back to a neutral file status. Luckily, I found out how at Tech Support Guy Forums without needing to delete or edit registry files (scary!!).

Here’s how to re-associate (associate, link) zip files for extracting with Windows Vista:

  1. Right click any of the zip files associated with WinZip
  2. Click Change next to the “Opens with” line
  3. Click Browse
  4. Click Computer under Favorite Links on left sidebar
  5. Double click your hard disk
  6. Open Windows folder
  7. Scroll down and select the “explorer” file (this is NOT Internet Explorer)

Now when you click on the zip files, they will open with Windows Vista and there will be a button at the top that says “Extract all files.”

windows vista extract zip

Hope this helps some of you frustrated Vista users!