How to disable Windows built-in Zip or Cab support in Windows 10

Windows offers the feature to compress files by supporting Zip functionality. While it is a very useful feature if you are already using some third-party compression utility, some may want to disable Windows built-in Zip support and let the external zip program be associated with the zip file format. In this post let us see how to disable this Windows built-in ZIP or CAB functionality.

In Windows XP, this solution worked. All you needed to do was to unregister a dll file. Open the Run box, type the following and hit Enter:

regsvr32 /u %windir%\system32\zipfldr.dll

regsvr32 %windir%\system32\zipfldr.dll

This may not work in Windows 10/8/7/Vista, as unregistering of that particular dll file is unsupported in these later operating systems. If you try it, you will receive an error message.

Disable built-in Zip or Cab support in Windows 10

To disable Windows built-in Zip support in Windows 10/8/7, you will need to open regedit and delete the following two registry keys:

To disable support for zip files delete this key:

HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\CLSID\E88DCCE0-B7B3-11d1-A9F0-00AA0060FA31

To disable support for cab files delete this key:

HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\CLSID\0CD7A5C0-9F37-11CE-AE65-08002B2E1262

The Windows Registry may not allow you to delete these keys easily.

You may need to take ownership of these registry keys. I suggest you use our RegOwnIt to do so easily.

If you have another zip or file compression software installed, you may want to consider disabling this built-in zip support, to save some resources.

Goes without saying - create a system restore point first!