As you probably know, Microsoft added support for zip or compressed folders to Windows with the release of XP. However, if you rather use a third-party tool, you can disable the support in Windows Vista by deleting the following registry keys:
Hive: HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT
Key: CLSID
Name: {E88DCCE0-B7B3-11d1-A9F0-00AA0060FA31}
Hive: HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT
Key: CLSID
Name: {0CD7A5C0-9F37-11CE-AE65-08002B2E1262}
Don’t forget to restart Windows for the change to take effect.