Mike,
Your file works fine on my system. However, in case this might be the problem, let me correct something you said in your original post:
> According to the comments in the forum, the zcolors.in_ file
> in the distribution matches the ZTreeWin defaults.
I'm not sure where you saw this on the forum, but this is NOT the case! There are numerous entries in that file without semicolons that change the defaults, including file colors by extension and directory colors by attributes.
It so happens that the four items from which you removed the semicolons did not change the default ZTree colors when ZCOLORS.INI is present. So if you are comparing the before and after colors of your edit then you will not see any differences. Rename the extension back to .IN_ and restart to see the difference. Or temporarily change something like DIRECTORIES to some other color.
HTH!
- John