There is application called Powerdesk that is an excellent Windows Explorer alternative.
On install I would uncheck all entries it suggest if you want to use your current archive extractor and Windows Explorer as the shell
If you've every looked in SysInternals Autoruns and noticed an entry...
archive extraction
copy
copyaspath
drag and drop
explorer
features
file management
file operations
hidden features
launchbar
move to
powerdesk
resource hacker
search functionality
software
sysinternals
undo
windows 7
windows alternatives
zip files