Windows – ZIP archives not opening in Explorer on some Windows 10 machines

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I am a sysadmin and manage approximately 40 or so end user systems. Recently I upgraded most systems to Windows 10. Everything is working except for that some machines cannot open ZIP archives using the native unzipping tool built into Windows. Double-clicking zips does not bring them up in Explorer and right-click >> Extract All >> Extract gives the error: "Windows cannot complete the extraction. The Compressed (zipped) folder is invalid."

Zips can still be opened using 7zip or The Extractor though.

This is happening on five machines I tested, but two other machines can open them fine.

  • Only thing I've found online that is similar to my issue: http://www.tenforums.com/general-support/19428-zip-file-file-explorer.html

  • The reg file in question is not corrupt on any of the machines I tested.

  • I have confirmed that our anti-virus client is not blocking zips.

  • Machines are all updated to the latest patches.

    It is an odd problem. I much appreciate any help or insight that can be given.

https://www.dropbox.com/s/iyb8kd1cudvq8ff/zip.txt?dl=0

Best Answer

The GUID values are messed-up. See if this REG file fixes the problem.

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\CompressedFolder\CLSID]
@="{E88DCCE0-B7B3-11d1-A9F0-00AA0060FA31}"

[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\SystemFileAssociations\.zip\CLSID]
@="{E88DCCE0-B7B3-11d1-A9F0-00AA0060FA31}"

The REG file needs to be run from admin account.

Those two were missing in your file association dump and I stopped at that point. If the REG fix doesn't help, let me know so that I can go through rest of the dump.

Note that the above should fix the file association (double-click action) but may not fix the "Extract All" error you're seeing. That's most likely a different issue than file type associations.

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