Eureka! Fix found to problem opening multiple files!

Well, the fix is in and it doesn't involve Don King or the Supreme Court this time!

You may (or may not) remember that on the 21st of May, I blogged about a problem I was seeing on multiple systems. The problem was that for some reason, these systems were no longer able to open or print multiple files from within Windows Explorer.

Anyhow, I have found the fix! It was actually added to my comments last night.

Thanks so much to povilas for providing the fix.

Open up registry editor (regedit.exe). Go to key HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\*\shellex\ContextMenuHandlers. Export the key using File menu->Export...

Delete all values in key HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\*\shellex\ContextMenuHandlers except for Open With, WinZip and WinRAR (those are the only ones that I could keep in the key and still open multiple files, but your mileage may vary.

You might also have to delete the following keys in order to get it to work, however, I was able to fix the problem with just deleting stuff in the key I mentioned above.

HKEY CLASSES ROOT\AllFilesystemObjects\shellex\ContextMenuHandlers
HKEY CLASSES ROOT\Directory\shellex\ContextMenuHandlers
HKEY CLASSES ROOT\Drive\shellex\ContextMenuHandlers
HKEY CLASSES ROOT\Folder\shellex\ContextMenuHandlers

Comments

[Sven]

Hi!

Some times ago i've the same problem and found a
solution anywhere in the web.

A few weeks ago i've newly installed my notebook
and a few days later the problem accours again.
But i can't found the solution again.

10 Minutes from this message ago i think i can
search the problem in english - so i found your
solution - many, many thanks.

By the way: my problem will be destroyed after i
killed the entries of "AVG Antivir" AND "7zip"
in the Registry-folder HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\*\shellex\ContextMenuHandlers

Thanks again, greatings from germany
and sorry for my bad english

Sven

[Jeff]

Thanks much for this fix! I suffered from the same problem and your posted solution saved the day for me...

[Big Al]

Having the same problem I found your advice. Since it worked I thought I'd play around and try and narrow it down somemore.
Turns out my own problem was solved by deleting
HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\*\shellex\ContextMenuHandlers\Ultimatezip
That key and that key alone (none of the other Ultimatezip entries) unlocked the opening/printing multiple files from the context menu problem.
An Ultimatezip re-install later everything still worked and the ability to zip returned :)
Could this be some clash with the XP inherent zipping software, or an update for it maybe?

[Mike Weiss]

This works fine for explorer windows. However, my problem is that the Open Office Document shortcut, the one that comes default with the Office installation for Office 2003 is still not letting me open more than one file at a time. I'm sure it's caused by a recent update, I've had the ability to open multiple docs until just recently. I get a small dialog box that says, "The program associated with the selected template cannot be started, or the program cannot use the selected template." Of course, all you can do at that point is click ok and watch it go away. Any ideas anyone?

[Robert Allarie]

Just found this info and tried the fix. It works!! For me the problem was a program called wholockme. deleted key HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\*\shellex\ContextMenuHandlers\wholockme

Problem went away. I restored key and again could not open multiple files. Removed program using the uninstall supplied with it and problem again went away.

Thanks. I have been looking for this off and on for some time now. I appreciate your effort to publish this type of help. Thanks again.

[T]

I narrowed this problem down to wholockme as well. Without knowing about where to look in the first place I probably would still be trying to figure out why I could not do multiple opens (using the mouse). For those who don't know wholockme is an application that unlocks handles on a particular file so you can do things like delete it, move it, and so on. I use a similar, alternate application called unlocker instead of wholockme due to this problem. The strange thing about this problem is that the enter key works for performing multiple opens while the mouse does not. Thanks again, Alex for pinpointing the root of this problem.

[Wes gegg]

I also had this same problem, realize after reading above that it may have came from installing stuffit. Removed and all is good again.

Thanks for the help. Wes

[Aimee]

Thank you for posting this!! I work in the Help Desk of my company and none of us could figure out what was going on. For us it ended up being WS_FTP. Delete that key and all was well. Interesting that we all have different keys to delete but these are all the same solution. I wonder what the connection is...

[CSRK]

Just deleting the "Copy to" & "Move to" keys (but not the "Send to" key) in
HKEY CLASSES ROOT\AllFilesystemObjects\shellex\ContextMenuHandlers
totally resolved this problem for me.

As the "Move to" & "Copy to" dialogs are inappropriately invoked when attempting to open multiple files via the Context Menu, it seems logical that this should work - & it did, I'm happy to say - although I do miss the use of those two functions in the Context Menu, but it's a small price to pay to remove the annoyance. It would be nice to think MS might resolve the bug, but I'm not holding my breath!