Fix Double Click Always Opens Search in Windows Explorer

by Miguel · May 7, 2012

Improve PC performance Migrate to a Solid State Drive (SSD)

Here is a quick and easy fix for this problem.

1. Open Start ->-> Run or press Window Key + r , this will open the run prompt.

2. Type “regedit” ( without quotes ) and press Enter.

3. Navigate/Browse down to this registry key:

HKEY_CLASSES_ROOTDirectoryshell

Double-click on the default value and set it to “none” without the quotes, as seen here:

This will restore the normal behavior.

If you are also experiencing this problem when you try to click on a drive, you can run this command from the run box or command prompt:

regsvr32 /i shell32.dll

1. Open Start ->-> Run or press Window key + r

2. Type “regsvr32 /i shell32.dll” ( without quotes ) and press Enter

After the command run successfully, you will see a message saying DllRegisterServer and DllInstall in Shell32.dll succeeded. This should restore the normal behavior.

If you are getting a message that says “Windows cannot find ‘PET32.exe’”, then at some point you had a virus, or still have a virus. First, make sure that you run a virus scanner to get rid of the virus. Then run the regsvr32 command above, which should fix the problem.