Fix Windows 7: Library Cannot Open or Explorer No Association?

Windows 7 is inching to the final public release, and party atmosphere is heating.

For any software as huge and essential as operating system, no matter how great it is, gets dysfunctional here or there sometimes. The question is how to fix it and we judge a good OS by having as few frustrations as possible while the necessary fixing being not complex.

I came across one in Windows 7 recently, and after spending a few seconds in search engines, it came out I’m not alone. Some solutions are provided over the Web, but none will solve the problem perfectly.

I had deployed Windows 7 Ultimate on all my computers since the day it became available on MSDN, and haven’t found a single problem in use. Today, sitting in front of my workstation, I clicked on Library icon which I didn’t check much recently, it prompted me error.

“This file does not have a program associated with it for performing this action. Please install a program or, if one is already installed, create an association in the Default Programs control panel.”

NON PERFECT SOLUTION

A solution online provided at Microsoft forum can solve the problem, but not in a perfect way because it will bring on new frustrations.

Copy the following to a txt editor and save it as *.REG

Double click it to run, and the fix will work.

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Folder\shell\opennewprocess\command]
"DelegateExecute"="{11dbb47c-a525-400b-9e80-a54615a090c0}"

[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Folder\shell\opennewwindow\command]
"DelegateExecute"="{11dbb47c-a525-400b-9e80-a54615a090c0}"

[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\opensearchfilefolderresult\shell\open\command]
@=""
"DelegateExecute"="{99969a8f-27e6-4adf-ab9f-b5b5e90d4733}"

[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Folder\shell\explore\command]
"DelegateExecute"="{11dbb47c-a525-400b-9e80-a54615a090c0}"

[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\WMP11.AssocFile.m3u\shell\Enqueue\command]
"DelegateExecute"="{45597c98-80f6-4549-84ff-752cf55e2d29}"

After this fix, Library shortcut would work again, but whenever you right-click a directory, it shows up like this.

Notice that opennewprocess and opennewwindow? Well, after this fix, they cannot be deleted. Of course you can delete them in registry or modify that file to eliminate both lines, but the problem is after the modification, Library shortcut will be broken again.

THE PERFECT SOLUTION

To fix it like it’s never been broken, I installed a brand new Windows 7 Ultimate in virtual machine, exported those lines in the registry, and applied them on my problematic system, and everything got back to normal again.

So here presents the perfect solution, the Microsoft original.

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Folder\shell\opennewprocess]
"MUIVerb"="@shell32.dll,-8518"
"MultiSelectModel"="Document"
"Extended"=""
"LaunchExplorerFlags"=dword:00000003
"ExplorerHost"="{ceff45ee-c862-41de-aee2-a022c81eda92}"

[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Folder\shell\opennewprocess\command]
"DelegateExecute"="{11dbb47c-a525-400b-9e80-a54615a090c0}"

[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Folder\shell\opennewwindow]
"MUIVerb"="@shell32.dll,-8517"
"MultiSelectModel"="Document"
"OnlyInBrowserWindow"=""
"LaunchExplorerFlags"=dword:00000001

[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Folder\shell\opennewwindow\command]
"DelegateExecute"="{11dbb47c-a525-400b-9e80-a54615a090c0}"

[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\opensearchfilefolderresult\shell\open\command]
@=""
"DelegateExecute"="{99969a8f-27e6-4adf-ab9f-b5b5e90d4733}"

[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Folder\shell\explore\command]
"DelegateExecute"="{11dbb47c-a525-400b-9e80-a54615a090c0}"

[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\WMP11.AssocFile.m3u\shell\Enqueue\command]
"DelegateExecute"="{45597c98-80f6-4549-84ff-752cf55e2d29}"

With this, right click is pretty again.

And Library works too, of course.

Enjoy.