Greg's Technical Blog

Restore Missing “Compressed (Zipped) Folder” in Send To menu

I have a Windows Server 2003 running Terminal Services setup for one of my clients.  2 of the users on that server need to be able to zip files and send them via email on a regular basis.  Because they are limited users (non-administrators) they are missing the Compressed (Zipped) Folder option under Send To when they right-click the selected file(s).  To solve this problem each user executed the following command from the Run dialog box (Click Start, then Run).  The command is CASE SENSITIVE:

rundll32 zipfldr.dll,RegisterSendto

In the background, a zero byte file named Compressed (zipped) Folder.ZFSendToTarget will automatically be created in the %Userprofile%\SendTo folder.  This command works for both Windows Server 2003 and Windows XP.

For Windows Vista users the fix is similar but the command is different.  The Compressed (zipped) Folder icon is present in each user profile and also in the Default user profile. Follow these steps to restore the icon to your user account:

1. Click Start, type the following where it says "Start Search" and press Enter (case sensitive):

%systemdrive%\Users\Default\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\Windows\SendTo

2. Right-click Compressed (zipped) Folder and choose Copy (Shortcut: CTRL+C)

3. Open the SendTo folder of your user profile. To do so, click Start, type the following and press Enter:

shell:sendto

4. Right-click an empty area in the folder, and choose Paste (Shortcut: CTRL+V)

Happy Zipping!