Solved Compressed Folder Tools Suddenly Grayed Out

I'm on Windows 8.

Compressed Folder Tools is all grayed out. I was able to zip and decompress files recently.

I tried adding the context menu extract commands, per one of the tutorials here, but I get the right click heading without any choices. Any suggestions on how to get this ribbon command section turned back on?

Hello Dirty Butter,

Please go ahead and post a screenshot showing this to see if it may help ID what the issue is.

I am able to unzip a file from the context menu within CuteFTP, but I can't get it to work from within Windows.

Ah, ok. You are referring to the tutorial below over at Seven Forums. This is not for creating ZIP files, but for NTFS compression instead.

If you like the free 9.30 version (top left corner at link below) of 7-Zip is a good program to use for unzipping .gz files.

OK, so I misunderstood what that ribbon tool set was for. Thanks for the clarification. So 8 doesn't have a built in way to expand zipped files?

I've used 7zip in the past, so I'll download that.

Yep, Windows 8 has the same built-in ZIP handler that Windows 7 does. It just doesn't support for .gz file types like 7-Zip does.

Thank you! Didn't realize .gz was out of the ordinary.

You're most welcome. Yeah, the built-in ZIP is just for the basics.

I had the exact same thing happen to me on my laptop. Everything on my desktop (now missing) shows up grayed in the Compressed Folder Tools Extract tab, and cannot be extracted. Unfortunately, I do not know where any of the files previously located on my desktop are located. I was working with some zipped files at the time, but have no idea if they were zipped into another file, and if they were, the name of the file. Any suggestions?

Hello Goleslie, and welcome to Eight Forums.

Are the tools still grayed out after selecting a .zip file?

What default program do you have set to open ZIP files with? It doesn't look like you are using the built-in ZIP feature in Windows.

Thank you for your quick reply. I have clicked on all of the zip files and at no time do they turn black. I was using 7zip but now using Winzip.

As a test, download and merge the .reg file for the listed ZIP option in the tutorial below to restore the default associations for the built-in ZIP feature. That should then allow you to use the ZIP tools.

http://www.eightforums.com/tutorials/8486-default-file-associations-restore-windows-8-a.html

I just completed the tutorial you sent me. The "Extract All" is no longer grey, but the files I'm missing are... Is there anything else I can do?

Good news so far.

Right click on your desktop to see if you may have an "Undo..." option that you may be able to use to undo whatever action you did to hopefully restore them.

Nothing.

I'm not sure what to suggest for your files other than to look where you think you may have placed them.

If you know any of their file names or extensions, you could do a search for that to see if they may show up in the search results.