unzipping a file in vista

Go to http://www.mydigitallife.info/2008/06/22/reset-and-fix-broken-windows-vista-file-ext-and-type-associations-include-exe-com-sys-zip-lnk-folder-drive/ and scroll to the Zip file and click on it to run the process.  This will repair the file association problem you're having with .zip files.

If that doesn't work (and it should), then read on for more options to try to resolve the problem:

Here's a link to how to restore the zip file association in Vista: http://www.vistax64.com/tutorials/65254-zip-file-support-restore.html This should reset the zip file association to the compressed folders and hopefully remove it from open files (though that may take another step).

Here's another link on how to turn compressed folders on and off in Vista: http://www.vistax64.com/tutorials/93827-zip-file-compressed-folders.html.

Here's a link on how to restore default association settings in Vista: http://www.vistax64.com/tutorials/233243-default-file-type-associations-restore.html.This should also restore the open files default associations which do not include zip.

Between these three links, you should be able to restore zip files to the compressed folder association and not with open files - in effect, returning things to their default settings.

Here are a few additional links that may be of help if the above three do not resolve the problem: http://www.vistax64.com/tutorials/91920-unassociate-file-extention-type.html, http://www.mydigitallife.info/2008/06/22/restore-and-reset-file-association-in-windows-vista-back-to-original-default/, http://www.mydigitallife.info/2008/06/22/reset-and-fix-broken-windows-vista-file-ext-and-type-associations-include-exe-com-sys-zip-lnk-folder-drive/, and http://www.winhelponline.com/articles/105/1/File-association-fixes-for-Windows-Vista.html.

If none of the above works, download the free 7-Zip at: http://www.7-zip.org/, install it and use it to unzip/extract the files.  That will almost certainly resolve the problem of opening the zip files and if you set it as the default for Zip files, then you can use it instead of Vista's program to deal with all zipped or compressed files (or creating them as well).

I hope this helps. 

Good luck!