Clicking on a file icon launches Search on my Windows PC?

Similar problems have cropped up in several support forums.

Both the keys below seems sometimes to get their default-action changed,
causing the wrong action to happen when clicking on folders.
Most often, as far as I've seen reported, in such a way that the search function is

started:

HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Drive\shell

name = Default
type = Reg_SZ
data = none

HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Directory\shell

name = Default
type = Reg_SZ
data = none

They should both normally have the value "none" in "default" , but sometimes it get's set to empty or something else (still haven't seen any explanation as to why).

Unfortunately I know of no other way to correct this, except for either using RegEdit, or alternatively create reg-files which could be imported directly in to the registry.

Reader

Can't this be corrected through the advanced button found on the file types tab of the folder options dialogue box accessed from Windows Explorer's tools menu? The box that opens when the advanced button is clicked seems to provide a GUI for changing what happens when you left or right click on a file. Or am I missing something?

This happend to me too. You can solve it by going to: folder options> file types> select the filetype> advanced> select the action you want as default action> and click set as default. If the action you desire isn't there, you can create a new one there too.

How do you create a new one? I went in to create a a new one "open" and it says I need to select a path. Can anyone help?

Thanks anyway.

I went to MS online support and got the answer. See the following link: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/321186/en-us

Even easier way to fix...

Start > Run > regsvr32 /i shell32.dll

Just to clarify, it's NOT "Default" that you should set, but "(Default)".

In other words, select HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Directory\shell and the name "(Default)" will be displayed on the right - double click this, DON'T create a new key called "Default". The value should be "none".

The problem I had was horrible. Explorer was convinced that Directory should have the default, despite Folder's default being Open, so the first Directory action was always being used in preference to "open", which in my case was to open a command window!

Thank you Krystyna! After bashing my head trying to figure out the safest way to (uggh!) edit the registry to solve the same problem, I decided to just back up the whole and registry, and try your solution. And it worked! Very quick and easy, no registry editing required.

A million thanks!

Ted

Thank you Krystyna! Yours worked the best

i shell32.dll
plz help what to do about this .. plz giv each n every step