Right-click menu in windows explorer (win98se)

Hi guys,
recently i installed some software and unfortunately that horrible stuff disabled my right-click possibilities in the Windows explorer for drives, folders and among others *.exe files, but not for txt files. Of course this is very uncomfortable and the developer only suggested to put back the original settings file which the program had made with the install, but this does not help at all.
I can't even right-click a file to scan with something or zip it or i must go all to msdos to do it that way!
This is a most horrible situation.

So i hope somebody knows settings to look at in the registry i guess which i can't find myself at the moment.
Mind you, this is win98se, so i have no system restore, i really need some windows shell settings ( i suppose)

 

Hi Jooske,

Click Start > Run > type or copy&paste regedit /e C:\ContextMenu.reg "HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Directory\shellex\ContextMenuHandlers" in the dialog box and click OK.

Then find C:\ContextMenu.reg, open it in notepad and post the content.

Regards,

Pieter

 

Oops! they say "mind the wrapped lines!" in such cases the part behind the content.... reg needed to be added too.
I wonder if this says anything at all, but ok this is in that
REGEDIT4

[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Directory\shellex\ContextMenuHandlers]
"ICQMenu"=""

[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Directory\shellex\ContextMenuHandlers\WinZip]
@="{E0D79300-84BE-11CE-9641-444553540000}"

[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Directory\shellex\ContextMenuHandlers\The Cleaner]
@="{2DE506B9-4320-11D3-8E42-002035221EDA}"

[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Directory\shellex\ContextMenuHandlers\WinRAR]
@="{B41DB860-8EE4-11D2-9906-E49FADC173CA}"

[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Directory\shellex\ContextMenuHandlers\{C5098102-EAF2-493A-883A-B7B751B21534}]
@="{C5098102-EAF2-493A-883A-B7B751B21534}"

---------

Thing is i have lots more in the right click menu so where is it all and i don't know what to look for further.

 

Hi Jooske,

Maybe you find a hint here

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?kbid=260703&product=w98

succes,

Gerard

 

Do you have TweakUI installed? If so, try the 'Repair' tab, selecting 'Associations'. This may work. Also, if you have X-Setup installed, try Appearance - Files&Folders - Enable "New" Context Menu.

 

Reying to understand better what this could be for.
That 4th key in my regedit doesn't say me anything but so does most in the whole registry with values etc.
I know it happened installing the four programs of FreshView, FreshUI, etc, does this help in searching?
That FreshUI made the original.fbu which should have been the original settings, but putting that back did not help, so i think after reading the MS desktop story --fortunately that part is still ok-- and the direction Pieter is trying to put me in feeling this is just the start of it.
I waited with doing anything after Pieter's posting, just only read and looked in some keys doing nothing with them.
I hoped it would be as easy as go yo key HEYK..... \exe and change value .. into ''

 

Hi Jooske,

I'm afraid it won't be that easy. They are completely gone there.

The last one is strange though.
Can you search your registry for this CLSID:
{C5098102-EAF2-493A-883A-B7B751B21534}

Let me know what you come up with.

Regards,

Pieter

 

HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\CLSID\{C5098102-EAF2-493A-883A-B7B751B21534}
"FolderBox Shell Extensions"

Under that one is InprocServer32 with value
"c:\program files\folderbox\FolderBoxShell.dll"
and
ThreadingModel "Apartment"

I remember long ago to have installed FolderBox but never use it anymore (consciously -- it's part in the right-click menu it's there long time so i guess that didn't cause the problem)

I did see in many places in the HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT etc several ShellExt with all kinds of programs and if i remember wel in drive and drives, exes, files, folders, etc (not 100% sure what i saw where) so maybe the files you're looking for are all placed to separate locations?

Would it help if i hunt for the FreshView and FreshUI things?

 

Hi Jooske,

If you still can run Fresh UI:

go to Explorer > Folders Settings > Folder Context Menu

What do you see now in your right window

Gerard

 

Realising you mean in Fresh UI, not the windows explorer itself.

I see them all with a blue icon and telling no discription given.

I see this for files and folders.
I hoped with clicking in Files on the
Any files context menu to have added all files to be added for right click but no, still nothing , even not after reboot

In the folders i see two of these:
folders context menu no description given and
folders context menu (more) a red icon telling me to add a show DOS box from this folder command
same on the Drive contenxt menu
For the descriptions things i don't know what to add and i don't know what that "show DOS box thing would implicate.

So all these are all standard default i suppose and what should i change then?
Seems i need those context menu's for folders and files, right to add some command which i don't know yet.

The strange thing is other file tipes like txt, dll and others do function still on the rightclick with the rightclick menu as supposed, it's the drives, folders and exe files as far as i discovered till now.
Does this help to give step by step instructions?

It might be of interest that in windows explorer on this main computer i have all these problems and that is where i installed those Fresh programs; if i go via this same windows explorer computer to the computer shared via the network i can rightclick on the shared drives there, but also there the right click on exe files doesn't work now.

What irritates me hightly is that even with setting back what i thought the original windiows settings from before these installs doesn't make the wished changes!

 

Hi Jooske

[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\batfile\shellex\ContextMenuHandlers]

[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\batfile\shellex\ContextMenuHandlers\Fresh UI]

@="{bla bla bla bla bla}"

Do you have a key that looks like the one above?

It seems that when you run a RegFile it only adds its info into your registry. It does not delete any keys not listed automatically. Since ContextMenuHandler is not a default SubKey of BatFile it was not affected.
Does FreshUI erroneously add a SubKey and Data to the BatFile Key. If you have this subkey and delete it,does all the functionality was return to your context menu. I think System Work

Hope this little tip helps.

 

HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\batfile\shellex\PropertySheetHandlers\{86F19A00-42A0-1069-A2E9-08002B30309D}

Only this in that location.
Are we coming near?

HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\CLSID\{86F19A00-42A0-1069-A2E9-08002B30309D}

HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\CLSID\{86F19A00-42A0-1069-A2E9-08002B30309D}\InProcServer32
with in the right panel Shell32.dll and ThreadingModel "Apartment"

Guess that inprocserver mut be the same folderbox mentioned above

In the meantime even dit an IE repair and reboot but no difference.


Is it interesting to know if i do this?
In windows explorer
click on a drive letter one time, in the left pane or right, in the top menu clck file and then i can get the drive and the rightclcik menu opening from there for drives.
Same if i click a folder, the rihtclick menu opens that way.
But if i select an exe file in the right pane and try the same, i crash, the one time with kernel32.dll error, the other with error unknown, the last time with this invalid page error
XPLORER heeft een fout met betrekking tot een ongeldige pagina veroorzaakt in
module RJHEXT.DLL op0167:04cdfffc.
Registers:
EAX=00000000 CS=0167 EIP=04cdfffc EFLGS=00010246
EBX=04e5364c SS=016f ESP=008dede4 EBP=008dedec
ECX=04e5364c DS=016f ESI=00000000 FS=320f
EDX=008df1f8 ES=016f EDI=00000015 GS=0000
Bytes in CS:EIP:
01 00 ff ec d0 cf 04 01 00 00 00 00 00 00 80 00
Stackdump:
827ae46c 01b3b458 008dedf8 04cc744d 04e5364c 008deea4 6680d36d 04e5364c 00000624 827ae46c 6680d33e 827ae46c 004f6784 6680d2c1 827ae46c 00000624

which is why i tried that IE repair, which didn't help either.

In another part i saw the FreshView
In installing that it asked to have file associations, and i said first it was ok, as i saw it were all images and music files, but i discovered i no longer was able to use Irfanview, so i disabled all file associations for FreshView. No exe files in that, btw, but now i think maybe this action left somewhere an extra key where it should not be.
With Controlers story in mind too thinking about that.
So you guys think another key would never be overwritten or a value changed, just added a value?

We might be getting nearer somehow......

Pity is i don't dare to run a regclean automatic thing anymore, only a thing i can look and decide myself if i would know what i am doing (i don't know, just can look)

 

Hi Jooske! As I'm not much of a teacher skilled, try to follow me on this. Scanregw is a file in windows folder that automatically makes backups of your registry. It will allow you to backup 10 times. It stores settings in two files, that it keeps hidden, Sytem.dat and User.dat. They can be found in the windows folder. If you rename user.dat to something memorable and then reboot win98se will rebuild user.dat and it will take scanregw settings for it's rebuild, I'm looking for the names of those files now but they are on your computer usually starting with 00something.extension. Hold on this is usually an easy fix if your scanregw settings were in auto. I'll be back with more info shortly as I have done this before on numerous occasions. Ibn effect win98se rebuild will backup a day each time you rename user.dat.

 

I have that thing indeed installed time ago and it did save me another time longer ago.
Doesn't it make a backup each day? I set it to 5 days and the problem started with the install of Fresh at 19 february so that is more then 5 days back......

I'm sure there are more people with the kind of problem so this can become educative for others too to look in several places and try the one or the other before it is too late!

I wonder if it would be a good or bad idea to uninstall those FreshView and FreshUI things and try if that would clean out the registry too? Although there is the risk it could make the damage even bigger if there are changed connections to them which could be lost with that uninstall, so i hesitate.

 

Hi Jooske! The files are kept in C:\windows\sysbckup\rb###.cab The windows default is only 5 days so you may only have 5 files rb000.cab thru rb005.cab if I'm correct they are renumbered each time scanregw runs, so rb005.cab is the earliest. I have renamed these also so windows is forced to use the one I wanted. It will only use the one it can find.

 

Yes there is a way to have scanregw save its backups to any other folder you want as many days as you want. I can work on a txt file and repost if you want with instructions. scanregw has saved me before as I save backups to my zip drive for 10 days.

 

As a last resort you can do a scanreg/repair from DOS

 

I'm still looking for associations. FreshView seems to have overtaken things, part of them, i noticed i can't even rightclick on desktop icons: some do give the rightclick menu so i can look for properties for instance, others don't react at all. It's completely unclear for me which do and which don't. At least when something is an file.exe it does not react nowhere on right-click, some other files do, others don't.

If it had only not been so many weeks now i had hope for a scan... repair this moment i'm unsure.


Edit:
I did try the TweakUI to re-associate the icons, but did not really help yet.
After that i uninstalled FreshView, and tried the rightclick, still not back, maybe because i hadn't rebooted yet.
Installed it another time to look what it did exactly. It does associate itself with every known file type, even if you uncheck that option and in the options configure to do none of that. In the helpfile (needed to install that to look through it and try some things out) it only says uncheck and all is back to normal. NOT!
It does associate itself among others to *.exe like was my first horrible discovery.
OK, i toggled all filetypes on and off and saved off, no change.
Uninstalled FreshView again.
Looked in the registry and did a search. Still associated with all knows filetypes, it's just stuck in the registry. But not with a carefull but angry Jooske at hand, search next, delete next delete a few hundreds times, it was also there as FView so now no more.
Reboot,
in the windows explorer and desktop many file types are associated correctly back again to the normal windows right mouse click, but still not the *.exe and folders. So i get really closer.
It's so good to see the rightclick menu really unfold at several files and drives with all those nice options!

Now i don't dare to look at scanreg /repair as it could bring back all those malicious FreshView things, could it?
Nice program, overtaking the shell without warning and not even completely as also in that i could not get a rightclick on the exe files, but on many filetypes i could not in windows explorer, which made me think about this uninstall option.

What do you think guys, any hope for the exe?
Guess that should be in some ........euhmmm shell / shellex .. back to Pieter's first road?

And there is still maybe something to do with the FreshUI (or should i ditch that too?) -- the file context things were not all solved yet as i don't know what to type in there.

 

Jooske

Will either of these two help?

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;145810&Product=w98



http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;184023&Product=w98

 

Very useful links, thanks a lot Controler, guess i'm getting closer and closer!
I'm glad the system is already some part on the right way by now!

 

Still no luck. Any more ideas? FreshDevices -- maker of FreshView still not reacting otherwise but sending me weekly new offers.
Support? which support?
In their last newslist they do ask for ideas and source code for the FreshView so maybe they are trying to solve anything, but it would have been nice if they told me to hang on as they are investigating.
Ah well......

 

When you click on a folder and select options , what do you have for file types for EXE files?
Can you change it there?

controler

 

Works for win98 not sure about win98se

To restore the Registry and system to a "pre-install" state, simply reboot and hold down the CTRL key or F8 key so that you get the Windows 98 boot menu. Then choose Safe Mode Command Prompt only and hit Enter.

When you come up with the C:\> prompt change to the C:\windows\command directory. Once there type scanreg /restore, hit Enter, and the system will run the Windows Registry Checker and come up with a list of 5 backed-up Registries and their corresponding backup dates. Choose the date that is nearest to the pre-install date, press Enter, and that Registry will be restored to the system

QUESTION; you Do have ACTIVE DESKTOP ENABLED ?

 

Controler i can't get the folder properties as i can't right click on them and when i select a folder, no matter if i do in right or left pane and in the top menu try to open "File" explorer crashes.
So it's very really wrong here since i sintalled those four FreshDevices things. Since they don't give any support after that one email to put back the origin.fbu i can just give a loud warning to be extremely careful with their software.
I feel really bad as some weeks ago another user here asked me for a download helper without advertisement etc and i adviced the Fresh downloader although i told honestly i did not know the software yet and would d/l it myself too for a try.
We all know by now the drama those four things caused on my system.
I saw somebody else in a HJT log with Freshstuff in it too but not sure about their problems nor if they were related to the fresh software either. I just noticed it and it would be interesting to know if there is a relation.

To be able to do a real comparition i wonder if anybody can check their results for exe associations, seeing my screenshot i made from the freshdiag tool.

 

Registry restore is no use as the oldest date is 9 march which is after i started this thread and after i had some settings repaired already a bit.
I wonder what does scanreg /fix again, it says it fixes the registry but i remember there were advices not to use it, but i am no longer sure why not.

Active desktop, i don't remember how to see if it is enabled or not, i see it as a menu option and i do remember it was ever strongly adviced not to enable it which i probably did not then.

I think there has to be looked in a file (?) context menu somewhere like Pieter started with in the first postings where there might be too many entries of which some should be disabled or deleted but which and where?

There is a new FreshView version, i have no FV installed at the moment and i hesitate to try the updated one if that could possibly fix these errors; in fact i think it could make things worse; it doesn't tell if it has fixes or just some new functions and my questions about that have not been answered so ..........