I have a Win 7 machine where Chrome's "show in folder" feature for downloads (i.e. from Ctrl-J) is broken. And it's not just a problem in Chrome, the same problem exists in IE, too. Either browser will display the standard "This file does not have a program associated with it..." message when you attempt to open the download folder. Trouble is, there is nothing obvious amiss with file associations. Folders open normally from any file explorer, etc. I notice that there are many complaints about this problem by Linux users, but I can't find anything that documents how the feature is handled in Windows. I've reinstalled the browsers to no effect. Anyone here run into this problem, or have any idea how to straighten it out?
chromium 57 stable is not concerned, not here. windows 8.1 if it concerns all your browsers in windows then it seems that your windows is broken. look for HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Directory and HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Folder in your backups.
Nothing amiss there that I can see. Folders and directories are opening normally. Looking for solutions to this problem, I see that chromium-based browsers are frequently causing this exact problem on Linux, and it appears to be a MIME-handler issue. Although the problem on Windows superficially looks like a broken file association, I suspect it really is fouled-up MIME-type handling.
then use a backup or repair sfc /scannnow (several times) or with DISM. you can not compare it to linux, linux dont own IE - and both (IE & chrom) use same procedures. in fact firefox and others should show up same issue for you. the is nothing you can do except a backup if you dont know the faulting tree in registry. i never had such issue all the years so assume you did something wrong with cleaning or tuning windows. or maybe a stupid security software which prevents that action (HIPS).
sfc checks clean, and DISM isn't an option for W7. Win 7 SUR also checks clean, and tweaking.com's Windows Repair likewise turns up nothing amiss. It is an obscure problem and one I didn't detect until image backups are stale. They may not precede the occurrence of the problem. It is not an entirely unknown problem, though, as there are several Chrome bug reports of these symptoms in Windows and OS X, as well as the numerous reports of this being broken on Linux. Nothing in the event logs sheds any light on what exactly it is that's lacking a file association. Whatever it is, all the browsers apparently use it. But it isn't documented anywhere that I've been able to find.
Well, I stumbled onto the cause of this problem. It's a problem with an easy fix, but I'll probably never know the ultimate root cause. The clue came when I happened to notice that the context menu feature, 'Open file location', was failing in explorer++ and other alternative file managers just as it did in the browsers (oddly, it worked perfectly well in Windows Explorer.) Somehow, the OpenContainingFolder ShellEx context menu extension class for the Folder progid had been set thusly: [HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Folder\shell] @="none" By clearing this Data setting to blank, the problem was solved. Why 'Open file location' worked just fine in Windows Explorer I do not know, but that confused things and helped to obscure the cause of the problem.
It is not problem with browsers, but some Windows file associations are missing. It happenes sometime, simply restore Windows default file associations and that's it. How? Repair registry, it is it. Simplest way to do it is to use Yamicsoft Windows 7 Manager => Repair Center => File Association. In registry it is key HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT
Yamicsoft is a new one on me. Thanks for mentioning it. I did restore default file associations using tweaking.com's Windows Repair, but it did not correct this problem.
thats right, see: i can recommend a full backup for registry as text file, either as reg-file (utf- or win9x/NT4 reg-file (ANSI) - no matter which one, both works. Regedit -> COMPUTER -> "Export" --> file to save... that includes some settings for several programs, maybe usefull from time to time. i have some backup for win7 and win8, i can verify and compare entries. HTH