Archives still showing as folders in Windows Explorer navigation pane...

Hi Guys,

Running Win 11 23H2 22631.3085...

I have 7-Zip 23.01 installed and associated with all archive files (.7z, .zip. RAR, etc).

However, in Windows Explorer, the archives are still showing-up as folders in the left-hand navigation-pane...

This makes things look rather messy when opening a folder that has a bunch of archives inside (see attached).

Cheers,

Mike.

See


Denis

That image shows a custom location of the Documents folder on a second drive or second partition on the only drive. And the compressed files are in a subfolder of Documents which could be normal. The default location of Documents is in C:\Users\USERNAMEHERE\. If not wanting the compressed files visible should be able to click the down arrow at left end of App to hide them.

Have you associated .zip files with 7-zip? Most associations in 7-zip have to be done manually in settings:

1. Open the 7-Zip File Manager with Administrator Rights from your start menu.
2. Go to the tools menu and select options.
3. Either select the individual extensions you wish to associate or press the “Select All” button (recommended).
4. Press OK to save your changes.

Just to confirm, I have 7-zip, I have associated all compressed file types to 7-zip, I do not see .zip files as folders.

EDIT: I wouldn’t associate .iso or .cab files to 7-zip, it might cause issues later if you need to mount one. Although this can be undone if needed.

@Berton: I have a couple of registry tweaks to make Windows Explorer a bit more usable (as in more Windows 10-like!). My user folders (docs, downloads, music, pics, vids) are all located on a separate partition.

Not sure what you mean by "..click the down arrow at left end of App to hide them."?

@antspants: Yes, I have 7-zip associated with all archive files - also check file associations in Settings>Apps>Default apps and it all looks fine there too...

Strange. What happens if you right click on the.zip files and choose always open with 7-zip? In case Windows needs a kick.

@antspants - still behaves the same...

But I've just discovered (after just updating another Win 11 machine that DIDN'T have this issue) that it's either KB5034204 or KB5034123 that has caused the problem... It is also now displaying archives as folders.

Mike.

mingle said:

Not sure what you mean by "..click the down arrow at left end of App to hide them."?

Click to expand...

When showing folders in the Navigation pane that have subfolders there should be a Right arrow at the left end of the folder name, click it to show or hide subfolders, it will turn to the down arrow. The the subfolders will have the down arrow.

Still no luck on getting this sorted.

One additional annoyance is that most of my archives are password-protected, so I can't even click on them in the navigation-pane to get them to open.

There must be a registry fix to get around the issue that KB5034204 or KB5034123 has introduced?

ExplorerPatcher (on GitHub) ➜ go to Properties ➜ File Explorer ➜ Control Interface: Windows 10 Ribbon