7-Zip help please.

njj1046 · 14 Feb 2009 at 14:20

Just installed Vista 64 and thought I'd ditch my ancient copies of Winzip and WinRar in favour of 7-Zip.

7-Zip installed ok and took control of whatever file types it was associated with. If I double click on a RAR file or Zip file it opens in 7-Zip... fine.

However, I can't seem to get it to integrate itself into the shell context menu. I want to be able to right click on a file and have 7-Zip options there to be able to "extract here" and "zip this file" etc, but no joy

Any ideas?

Daegan · 14 Feb 2009 at 14:29

Which 7-Zip version did you install, 32-bit or x64?

njj1046 · 14 Feb 2009 at 14:45

Damn, I downloaded the 32 bit version off the main page

I didn' realise there was a separate download page with a 64 bit version.

Right, I uninstalled the previous version and downloaded and installed the 64 bit version.

Now I can right click on a file and I get a 7-Zip menu

Unfortunately though Vista won't let 7-Zip take control of the file associations that it wants to. Every time I go into the 7-Zip options I tick all the boxes to associate it with all archive formats. Then I go and double click on a RAR for file for example and Vista doesn't know which program it needs to open it with :confused:

Whenever I go back into the 7-Zip options now all the file associations are unticked :mad:

I can repeat this over and over, but something is stopping it from taking control of the file associations it wants to.

Glaucus · 14 Feb 2009 at 14:48

start menu > default programs
have a look in there, should be able to set it up.

Daegan · 14 Feb 2009 at 15:01

njj1046 said:
Whenever I go back into the 7-Zip options now all the file associations are unticked .

It needs elevated privileges, so right-click and run as administrator then set the file associations. Only need to do this the once.

njj1046 · 14 Feb 2009 at 15:13

Daegan said:
It needs elevated privileges, so right-click and run as administrator then set the file associations. Only need to do this the once.

Ahhhh, thank you. All sorted now :cool:

Excuse my noobishness, but I'm new to Vista

MarcLister · 14 Feb 2009 at 17:16

njj1046 said:
Damn, I downloaded the 32 bit version off the main page I didn' realise there was a separate download page with a 64 bit version.

I did the same when I installed Vista x64.

I wondered why it didn't work properly. Then wondered why my brain didn't work properly.

njj1046 said:
Ahhhh, thank you. All sorted now

Excuse my noobishness, but I'm new to Vista

I found 7-Zip a little resistant to being set up the way I wanted it in Vista x64. Would you agree?

I also was very noobish when I first got started on Vista.

njj1046 · 14 Feb 2009 at 20:14

MarcLister said:
I found 7-Zip a little resistant to being set up the way I wanted it in Vista x64. Would you agree?

I also was very noobish when I first got started on Vista.

Apart from getting the file associations correct I didn't see any problems with setting it up at all... very uncomplicated. It behaves much the same way as my old versions of Winzip and WinRar with the context menu.

All I wanted was a simple program to uncompress Zips and RARs and occasionally Zip something up. 7-Zip seems to fit the bill perfectly

I only recently bought Vista and dived straight into it really, erasing my XP install to install it. Gotta say though I'm loving it so far. I've only encountered 1 very old program that wouldn't work on Vista. No driver or compatibility issues at all :cool: