a Flo + a Blog = a Flog my ブログ

Outlook Fix: Attach Zip Files to Outgoing E-Mail

I was chatting with an employee at our company about emails and document management and he asked me about a strange thing happening on his MSFT Outlook 2003. When browsing for a zip file to put as attachment, Outlook would not display zip files.

It turns out this is a known bug.

Fortunately, there are two easy workarounds. First, you can manually open the folder containing the Zip file, then drag it to the new e-mail window. That accomplishes the same thing as selecting a file with the attach tool. Second, you can do the following:

• In Windows XP, click Start > Run, then type Command and hit Enter. In Vista, click Start, type Command and hit Enter.
• Type regsvr32 /u zipfldr.dll
• Wait for a confirmation box to appear. Click OK, then type Exit into the Command window to close it.

Windows has a system component that treats zip files like ordinary file folders and Outlook sees these files as folders. In most cases, it only happens when you don't have third party compression programs installed, so you may see the behavior on one system but not another.