Directory Opus supports many different archive formats. Support for Zip files (the most common Windows archiving format) is built-in to the program, and many other formats (like RAR, 7-zip, ISO, etc) are supported via a plugin system. Whether support for a format is built-in or implemented via a plugin, Opus lets you treat all supported archive formats as if they were normal folders. Double-clicking a supported archive format will navigate into it just like a folder, and you can copy files out of it, or view its contents directly, just like normal files. For the formats that support creating archives, you can add files to an archive using the normal copy functions like copy-and-paste or drag-and-drop.
There are a large number of options in Preferences that you can use to configure archive support in Opus. For Zip files, see the Zip & Other Archives / Zip Files page, and for all other formats see the Zip & Other Archives / Archive and VFS Plugins page. You can also choose whether archives are shown in the folder tree (making them even more like folders!) with the Show in Folder Tree setting on the Folder Tree / Contents page.
The Archive Files button on the default toolbar lets you add selected files to a new archive. The drop-down attached to that button contains a number of additional archive-related commands that let you create or extract archive files. Extensive control of archives is also provided for supported formats via the context menu - you can configure which context menu items are displayed for each format from the Zip & Other Archives / Archive Context Menu page in Preferences.
If you want to disable support in Opus for a certain format you can do that from the Zip & Other Archives Preferences section. However, if all you want to do is stop double-click from opening the archive in Opus (because you have another tool installed that you want to use for those archives), another way to do it is by removing the format's file extension from the Archives file type group. This is a special group that all supported archive formats are added to by default. You can also use this group to add context menu items for all supported archive formats in one go.