Cannot ‘open folder’

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Running IE6 SP1 on W2K SP3. After downloading a file, when I select “open folder” in the dialog box, a standard W2K “search” dialog appears. Not sure when this started or what preceeded it. Suspect a bad registry value. Any ideas? Thanks.

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You could try going to start | run and type sfc /scannow

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Interesting problem. That would be the “Open” button when you Select a folder in the “Save As…” box?

That seems like a simple registry glitch to me… If you double-click a Folder on your Desktop, what happens?

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No, actually it is the [open] button that appears AFTER the download is complete and has been saved to disk. The choices are [open], [open folder], and [close]. I always want to open the folder, because often if you “open” a compressed file, it will puke all over your desktop. I prefer the control of openning an explorer window to the folder where the file has been saved, and operating manually from there.
I also think it’s a registry problem, but the question is: how to fix it??
SFC finds no problems, and w2k doesn’t have a system restore feature. I have no other obvious sytem problem, and I’m sure not going to reinstall just to solve this minor glitch.
Any other ideas would be greatly appreciated!

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Ah… the Download Complete box. I hate that box and I have not seen it for years — until today!

I think it may be a registry entry, but I need to know if folders anywhere else open up correctly. It may may in the shell commands for “Directory” or for “Folder” — or several other spots.

If I were to go WAY out on a limb, my guess is that the Foldershellopencommand key is messed up. I suspect the value is presently listed as:

C:WINDOWSExplorer.exe

But that is INCORRECT. That leads to the “Find/Search” box. Instead, the Open Command should be:

C:WINDOWSExplorer.exe /idlist,%I,%L

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Cowboy, YOU DA MAN !!

That value was empty, I entered “none” and VOILA !!

I will be eternally grateful for you solving one of the many trivial, little annoyances I deal with in the Hell we call Windows.

Give yourself a raise !

And thanks to all who made suggestions. The Lounge is an awesome resouce.

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Ah… that makes sense. IE must check the Directory (FIle Folder) key first, and if it does NOT find “none”, then it jumps to the first entry — “find”. If it does find “none”, then it goes to the Folder key and opens it with the “open” command. Intriguing…

Dang, this is supposed to be a WinXP specific problem — according to the MSKB:
Search Companion Starts If You Double-Click a Folder
____________________________________________

And for my own futrue benefit, here is the sequence IE uses to “open” a folder:

OpenKey HKCRDirectory SUCCESS hKey: 0xC29DF050
OpenKey HKCRFolder SUCCESS hKey: 0xC29B77B0
OpenKey HKCRAllFilesystemObjects SUCCESS hKey: 0xC29BAC30

OpenKey HKCRDirectoryShellopen NOTFOUND
EnumKey 0xC29DF050Shell SUCCESS find
EnumKey 0xC29DF050Shell SUCCESS Open DOS Box here
EnumKey 0xC29DF050Shell SUCCESS Print_directory
EnumKey 0xC29DF050Shell SUCCESS Print_Directory_Tree
EnumKey 0xC29DF050Shell SUCCESS ACDBrowse
EnumKey 0xC29DF050Shell NOMORE

QueryValueEx 0xC29DF050Shellfind SUCCESS “”
QueryValueEx 0xC29DF050Shell SUCCESS “”
OpenKey 0xC29DF050shellopencommand NOTFOUND

QueryValueEx HKCRFolderShell SUCCESS “Explore”
OpenKey 0xC29B77B0ShellExplore SUCCESS hKey: 0xC29B5A90

OpenKey HKCRAllFilesystemObjectsShell NOTFOUND

QueryValueEx HKCRFoldershellExplore SUCCESS
QueryValueEx 0xC29B77B0shellExploreCLSID NOTFOUND

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Thanks, Cowboy. I tried the manual repair way back when, but it didn’t help. I wouldn’t dare do the fast repair, because altho it sounds promising, it’s a shotgun approach, and there’s no telling what “corrollary damage” might be reaped upon my registry. If I repair the registry, it’ll have to be manual, “surgical”, if you know what I mean. Been there too often.

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After backing up your registry (or the whole system), you do have a backup, right? You can try deleting the values under the following registry key:

• HKEY_CURRENT_USERSoftwareMicrosoftWindowsCurrentVersionExplorerComDlg32OpenSaveMRU[/list]I suspect that’s where the problem lies.

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