Randy, I would recommend downloading 7 Zip for all your zip and rar files. Its a free program that does a good job of dealing with zip and rar both.
Grab the right file from the following page, at the top inside the green box.
http://www.7-zip.org/If you have 32 bit windows 7, you need to download the .exe file and run it to install the program.
If you have 64 bit windows 7, you need to download the .msi file and run it to install the program.
Then it will ask you what files types you want to use with 7-zip, I just leave them all checked. From then on, when you download a zip file, just right click on the .zip or .rar you want to extract and select 7-zip to extract it.