How do I change the colour used to display compressed files/directories?

Start the Calculator (Start - Run - Calc.exe)

From the View menu select scientific

Select Dec and enter in the first part of the RGB value

Click Hex and it will be displayed in Hex, e.g. 255 would show ff

Repeat for the G and B parts of the colour

Start the registry editor (regedit.exe)

Move to HKEY_CURRENT_USERSoftwareMicrosoftWindowsCurrentVersionExplorer

Double Click on the AltColor value in the right hand pane

You will see the actual value as something like
0000 00 00 FF 00 ..y.
Ignore the set of four zeros, and only modify the 3 sets of numbers after that, i.e. the 00, 00 and FF, ignore the last 2. To edit click once to the right of the value you wish to change the press the backspace key and it will delete both parts of the number, then type in your new value.

Click OK and then close the registry editor

You will need to logoff and on again for the change to take effect.

Start the TweakUI Control Panel applet (Start - Settings - Control Panel - TweakUI)

Click on the explorer tab

At the bottom is shows the "color of compressed files" (why can't Americans spell Colour :-) ), click "Change Color"

You can now just select the colour you want, and click OK

Click OK

You will need to logoff and on again for the change to take effect