Disable Explorer Window In Winrar?

As the thread title suggests, I'm looking to disable the explorer window in Winrar. If you don't know what I mean by "explorer window", I mean when you go to extract a file it asks you for the location in which you wish to extract it. Half of the screen where it asks you for the location you're looking for is an explorer window which displays a tree of where whatever folder you've got selected is. This is what I want to get rid of, as I find it extremely annoying (and, if I could, I'd get rid of it on every other programme that uses it - just use a non-tree explorer like you get if you're, say, right-clicking and saving a file).

The reason why is that it takes up just a teensy bit more time than if it weren't there. For example, I download audio plays from Big Finish. I have a Big Finish folder for them, then subfolders for each range of plays. The plays download as zip files which contain around 40 individual audio tracks each. These I want to extract in to a folder of their own within their range's subfolder. The quickest way to do this is to use the drop-down menu in the "extract to" box and select the folder that the last play I downloaded was extracted to, then change the title of the folder so that Winrar creates a new one.

So, for example, I've just downloaded "The Feast Of Axos", which is the Doctor Who play no. 144 in the monthly series and which features the 6th Doctor. When I go to extract it, in the "extract to" box I use the drop-down menu, select "143 The Crimes Of Thomas Brewster (6)", which is in the "Monthly Series" subfolder, then rename it "144 The Feast Of Axos (6)" and start it extracting. The problem is that when I select "143 The Crimes Of Thomas Brewster (6)" Winrar immediately starts to repopulate the explorer window so that the directory tree is now pointing to that folder, leaving the program inactive for a couple of seconds whilst it does so. In those couple of seconds I could have re-typed the title and already have it extracting.

Obviously it's only a couple of seconds, but it gets needlessly frustrating if you use Winrar a lot, when simply not having the explorer window would mean I didn't have to wait around for the program to do something that I don't want it to do in the first place.

Failing being able to turn it off in Winrar, is there a free equivalent of Winrar which isn't so annoying?

Thanks.

 

You could use 7-zip or even Windows itself to extract your zip files, but whichever you use I don't see there is any way around having to manually navigate through Explorer to the folder you want to extract to.

 

I think you're misunderstanding me. I don't mind using explorer to navigate through to the folder I want to extract to. I don't like the directory tree that this particular programme uses as its method of navigation.

If it had the equivalent of an "extract to" button which you pressed and it then brought up an explorer window of the type that you get when you right-click something and select "Save As" or click on "My Computer", then I'd be perfectly happy. What I don't like is there permanently being a nested tree of all the directories, which automatically seeks and opens the folder you've currently got selected.

In fact, as I don't think I was particularly clear, let me provide some things which, I'm told, are worth a thousand words. What I'm looking for is something which navigates using something like this: http://i23.photobucket.com/albums/b381/faceoftroll/Navigator.jpg

What Winrar has is a tree like this: http://i23.photobucket.com/albums/b381/faceoftroll/Explorer.jpg

That, I don't want.

I've tried 7-zip, but it's got the same thing.

 

The simple answer then is to type in the destination path. The field is already highlighted so just type away. Explorer won't then come into it at all.

 

Typing in "H:\Audio\Big Finish\Main Range\144 The Feast Of Axos (6)" wouldn't be quicker. Especially given that the directory tree automatically updates itself at every turn, so by the time I've typed "H:\" the programme is freezing up as the directory tree opens H: and lists every folder in the root directory, then letting me type "\Audio" before freezing again in order to open up that folder, and so on.

What would be quicker is to be able to select the most recent destination path and alter the name of that without the directory tree automatically updating itself as soon as you select the most recent one. That's what I'm trying to achieve. Whether that's in Winrar itself or in a different programme I don't care, but as it is it's just a frustrating waste of time.

 

7-Zip has the same problem as Winrar. Rarzilla looked promising, but doesn't actually allow you to create a new folder in which to unzip the archive.

Thanks, though.