Late Night PC

I was recently asked what to do when Windows tries to search every time you open a file folder. What happened was that every time the user clicks on a subfolder (in 'My Documents' for exmple), Windows Explorer would show the search options instead of just opening the folder in the normal view. [b]How to make it happen[/b] I tracked it down to the File Types tab in the Folder Options Dialog (more on that in this [url=http://www.latenightpc.com/windows-xp/explorer/windows-explorer-folder-options.html]Windows Tip[/url]). The File Type shows up as "File Folder" and the extension shows up as "N/A". Clicking the "Advanced" button at the bottom of the dialog shows the actions avalaible for File Folders. I have one action: find. Although it's the only action - "find" was not bold, which means it's not the default action. To try to reproduce the problem, I set pressed the "Set Default" button and made it the default action. This causes the problem described above. [b]How to make folders appear normally again[/b] First off, I have to warn you that the only way I know to fix this is by using Registry Editor. It's pretty simple, but editing your registry can cause serious trouble if you hit the wrong thing. If you're not comfortable with it, find out about Registry Editor first, then proceed. I used Registry Editor to go to HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Directory\shell\find . This displays a String Value that has a name "(Default)" on the right hand side. The Data for the String Value is "find". Just delete the value by right-clicking the word "(Default)" and choosing "Delete." The (Default) value will come back, but it won't say "find" any more. That's it. Your folders should be back to normal.