If you have issues with opening .zip attachments in Windows 7, by using Microsoft Outlook 2003.
When you double click the attachment, a prompt is displayed which gives you the option to open or save the file to disk. When you choose to open the file, nothing happens, but if you choose to save it to disk and open it using windows explorer, it normally opens.
This issue applies to Outlook 2003 on Windows 7. There is a registry value which controls how the explorer.exe handles certain file types for specific applications. This registry key is checking the comatibility of the Office version. For some reason, if you have 11.* version value, which is a Microsoft Office 2007 version, you will have issues opening attachments with older versions of Microsoft Office, as .zip file won’t be threated as a folder.
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\
ShellCompatibility\Applications\outlook.exe
STRIPFOLDERBIT (string value is present)
VERSION = 11.*;10.*;9.*;8.*;7.*
Solution:
Start the registry editor:
RUN | REGEDIT | enter
Navigate to the following key:
For 32-bit version of Windows
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\
ShellCompatibility\Applications\outlook.exe
STRIPFOLDERBIT (string value is present)
VERSION = 11.*;10.*;9.*;8.*;7.*
Edit the Version value and remove the 11.*;
For 64-bit version of Windows
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\WoW6432Node\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\
ShellCompatibility\Applications\outlook.exe
STRIPFOLDERBIT (string value is present)
VERSION = 11.*;10.*;9.*;8.*;7.*
Edit the Version value and remove the 11.*;
If you will experience any other issues regarding usage of Microsot Outlook and Outlook atachments, you can easily revert this change by modifying the same key and reverting the value.