Irksome Problem Opening Folders and Using Search

[BuckerooBilly]

I've got some related problems that just cropped up in my (almost) new
Dell Vostro running XP Home SP2.
These are just nagging things, I'm able to use the thing for work,
it's just that somehow I've got a few "features" missing (they might
have never been there, but my desktop running XP Home for two years
still has them.
First, at the "Start" button, using a classic menu, I have the
"Search" button available, and when I hover over it I get minimenu
items ("For Files or Folders..., On the Internet..., etc), but when I
click on "Files or Folders..." or "On the Internet...", I get about a
half second of hourglass and then the box disappears without a Search
window opening up. I can do a Search from a Windows Folder when it's
opened up, but if I try to "Open Containing Folder" after right
clicking a result, nothing happens.
Lastly, after I download a file, I cannot "Open Folder" from the
download dialog box. I click, the Dialog box closes just as if I had
pushed "Close".
My employer purchased the laptop, so I put a lot of my work files and
programs on it for field use. Perhaps I changed something I shouldn't
have, or loaded a file that shouldn't have been loaded, but my
employer's more of a "I'll buy it, you use it" type so there's no
'corporate IT' department to help chase this down. No one else that
was issued this model laptop has my problem, Search and Opening
Folders work just fine for them.

 

[Elmo]

I've got some related problems that just cropped up in my (almost) new
Dell Vostro running XP Home SP2.
These are just nagging things, I'm able to use the thing for work,
it's just that somehow I've got a few "features" missing (they might
have never been there, but my desktop running XP Home for two years
still has them.
First, at the "Start" button, using a classic menu, I have the
"Search" button available, and when I hover over it I get minimenu
items ("For Files or Folders..., On the Internet..., etc), but when I
click on "Files or Folders..." or "On the Internet...", I get about a
half second of hourglass and then the box disappears without a Search
window opening up. I can do a Search from a Windows Folder when it's
opened up, but if I try to "Open Containing Folder" after right
clicking a result, nothing happens.
Lastly, after I download a file, I cannot "Open Folder" from the
download dialog box. I click, the Dialog box closes just as if I had
pushed "Close".
My employer purchased the laptop, so I put a lot of my work files and
programs on it for field use. Perhaps I changed something I shouldn't
have, or loaded a file that shouldn't have been loaded, but my
employer's more of a "I'll buy it, you use it" type so there's no
'corporate IT' department to help chase this down. No one else that
was issued this model laptop has my problem, Search and Opening
Folders work just fine for them.

Here are a few articles I've collected.. hopefully something here will help:

1. Windows XP Search Problems
http://www.dougknox.com/xp/tips/xp_search_probs.htm
[Courtesy of MS-MVP Doug Knox]

2. Weird behavior caused by context menu handlers, or right-click is slow:
http://windowsxp.mvps.org/slowrightclick.htm
http://windowsxp.mvps.org/rcdelay.htm

3. Several dialog boxes are blank:
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/831430

_No_content_in_the_search_menu._

Click Start, Run and type:

regsvr32 %Windir%\srchasst\srchui.dll
regsvr32 jscript.dll
regsvr32 /i urlmon.dll
[From a post by Ramesh]

4. Transparent drop-down Menu and disappearing menu text -
http://windowsxp.mvps.org/transmenu.htm

 

[BuckerooBilly]

I've got some related problems that just cropped up in my (almost) new
Dell Vostro running XP Home SP2.
These are just nagging things, I'm able to use the thing for work,
it's just that somehow I've got a few "features" missing (they might
have never been there, but my desktop running XP Home for two years
still has them.
First, at the "Start" button, using a classic menu, I have the
"Search" button available, and when I hover over it I get minimenu
items ("For Files or Folders..., On the Internet..., etc), but when I
click on "Files or Folders..." or "On the Internet...", I get about a
half second of hourglass and then the box disappears without a Search
window opening up. I can do a Search from a Windows Folder when it's
opened up, but if I try to "Open Containing Folder" after right
clicking a result, nothing happens.
Lastly, after I download a file, I cannot "Open Folder" from the
download dialog box. I click, the Dialog box closes just as if I had
pushed "Close".
My employer purchased the laptop, so I put a lot of my work files and
programs on it for field use. Perhaps I changed something I shouldn't
have, or loaded a file that shouldn't have been loaded, but my
employer's more of a "I'll buy it, you use it" type so there's no
'corporate IT' department to help chase this down. No one else that
was issued this model laptop has my problem, Search and Opening
Folders work just fine for them.

Here are a few articles I've collected.. hopefully something here will help:

1. Windows XP Search Problems
http://www.dougknox.com/xp/tips/xp_search_probs.htm
[Courtesy of MS-MVP Doug Knox]

2. Weird behavior caused by context menu handlers, or right-click is slow:
http://windowsxp.mvps.org/slowrightclick.htm
http://windowsxp.mvps.org/rcdelay.htm

3. Several dialog boxes are blank:
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/831430

_No_content_in_the_search_menu._

Click Start, Run and type:

regsvr32 %Windir%\srchasst\srchui.dll
regsvr32 jscript.dll
regsvr32 /i urlmon.dll
[From a post by Ramesh]

4. Transparent drop-down Menu and disappearing menu text -
http://windowsxp.mvps.org/transmenu.htm

Thanks for the links, I worked through them but they didn't appy to my
problem. That said, while looking through the sites I did stumble
upon a method of changing the "Start" button, and the consequence was
losing the search function. Sure enough, since this is a work supplied
laptop, the folks that distributed my laptop did indeed change the
"Start" button text to the company's name. After restoring to a
'clean' copy of Explorer.exe, and changing all instances in the
registry to point to the clean copy, the "Start" button is back to
"Start" and all the missing functions are back.

 

[Elmo]

Thanks for the links, I worked through them but they didn't appy to my
problem. That said, while looking through the sites I did stumble
upon a method of changing the "Start" button, and the consequence was
losing the search function. Sure enough, since this is a work supplied
laptop, the folks that distributed my laptop did indeed change the
"Start" button text to the company's name. After restoring to a
'clean' copy of Explorer.exe, and changing all instances in the
registry to point to the clean copy, the "Start" button is back to
"Start" and all the missing functions are back.

Great news! Thanks for reporting back.