Zipping the easy way with Compressed (zipped) Folders

The easiest way to create a Zip file, er, a Compressed (zipped) Folder is with a simple right-click. Here's how:

1. Navigate to the files you want to zip. (For example, choose Start → Documents or Start → Computer and go from there.)
2. Select the file or files that you want to zip together. (You can Ctrl+click to select individual files or Shift+click to select a bunch.) Right-click any of the selected files and choose Send To → Compressed (Zipped) Folder.
   Windows responds by creating a new Zip file, with a .zip filename extension, and placing the selected files in the new Zip folder.
   The new file is just like any other file - you can rename it, copy it, move it, delete it, send it as an e-mail attachment, save it on the Internet, or do anything else to it that you can do to a file. (That's because it is a file.)
3. To add another file to your Compressed (zipped) Folder, simply drag it onto the zipped folder icon.
4. To copy a file from your Zip file (uh, folder), double-click the zipped folder icon and treat the file the same way you would treat any "regular" file.
5. To copy all files out of your Zip file (folder), click the Extract All Files button on the command bar.
   You see the Windows 7 Compressed (Zipped) Folders Extraction Wizard, which guides you through the steps.

Tip The Compressed (Zipped) Folders Extraction Wizard places all copied files into a new folder with the same name as the Zip file - which confuses the living bewilickers out of everybody. Unless you give the extracted folder a different name from the original Compressed (zipped) Folder, you end up with two folders with precisely the same name sitting on your desktop. Do yourself a huge favor and feed the wizard a different folder name while you're extracting the files.