Start menu "Open" and "Explore" grayed out

[Ninho]

On this Windows 98 SE system "Start menu", the "Open" and "Explore" right-click context options have become unavailable (grayed out)...

Everything else is working as designed. I don't think this is malware, rather I must have FUBARed something by myself, probably a registry key - but I can't find where exactly this comes from

Does this symptom ring bells and where should I look for repairing it ?

TIA !

Edited September 1, 2008 by Ninho

[Ken-mkII]

Installed X-Setup 6.2 (The last free version) and reset it.

[Ninho]

Installed X-Setup 6.2 (The last free version) and reset it.

Hi ! I have X-Setup (in fact 6.6.3 is the last free version AFAIK) but can't find what's wrong where :-(

The most approaching setting I can find in X-Steup is called : "Show context menu for Start button, Taskbar and Tray" and it is

checked on. And indeed I have the Start button's context menu working, only the aforementioned options : Open and Explore being grayed out.

Thanks for your input; more ideas ?

--

Ninho

[Ken-mkII]

Well, how long of your problem come out? If your haven't installed any softwares recently, you may try to restore the old registry files by "SCANREG /RESTORE" after boot into pure DOS...

Hope help.

[Ninho]

Well, how long of your problem come out? If your haven't installed any softwares recently, you may try to restore the old registry files by "SCANREG /RESTORE" after boot into pure DOS...

Hope help.

Yes but no thanks ! I want to identify the source of the problem - can live with it meanwhile...

[Ninho]

The final word - after some searching : it's a "well known" Microsoft ® Bug :=)

Namely an unwanted side effect of using TweakUI for hiding a drive letter from My Computer.

By well known, I mean it is even acknowleged by MS itself <http://support.microsoft.com/?id=188209>

In a typical microselfish way, the above article offers no solution other than unhiding any drives that were previously hidden. Grrr!

Does anyone knows a real solution ? I need to hide a (non MS) partition from Explorer, not for cosmetic reasons. So, this is not the final word after all...

--

Ninho

Acknowlegement : Found link to the MS article thru Google -> at MDGx's precious site :

<http://66.218.69.11/search/cache?ei=UTF-8&p=windows.98+explorer+start.menu+context.menu+disabled+explore+open&fr=moz2&u=www.mdgx.com/98-3.htm%2523TUI&w=windows+98+explorer+start+menu+context+menu+disabled+explore+open&d=I58ihRg5RNLF&icp=1&.intl=us>

[alexanrs]

Does anyone knows a real solution ? I need to hide a (non MS) partition from Explorer, not for cosmetic reasons. So, this is not the final word after all...

If it isn't a FAT partition, why would it show in Explorer. Anyway, hiding is useless: even though the drive won't appear in My Computer, you can still access it in the Address Bar, AFAIK.

[Ninho]

Does anyone knows a real solution ? I need to hide a (non MS) partition from Explorer, not for cosmetic reasons. So, this is not the final word after all...

If it isn't a FAT partition, why would it show in Explorer. Anyway, hiding is useless: even though the drive won't appear in My Computer, you can still access it in the Address Bar, AFAIK.

The problem is not whether it shows in an Explorer window (it doesn't), but it gives all sorts of annoyments : e.g., each time the trash is emptied, Windows prompts whether I want to format the "diskette" in the foreign partition (!) I daren't imagine what would happen to my Linux partition if someone inadvertently clicked OK ...

Hiding the partitions in question suppresses the annoyments, but then it reveals the start menu bug, subject of this thread.

Between two bugs, one has to choose the least

--

Ninho

[alexanrs]

wouldn't it be better to get a boot manager and hide the linux partition?

[Ninho]

wouldn't it be better to get a boot manager and hide the linux partition?

In one word : no, it wouldn't, for several reasons which would lead this thread afar. In my complex system, with OSes not only multibooting, but running in virtual machines from raw disk, I can't afford to "hide" some partitions (which is a misnomer btw; you don't hide parts, you change their type #) - the bug described in thread is more tolerable to me.

Thank you for your suggestions any way

--

Ninho

[Chozo4]

If the letter shows up during boot in DOS, you can try this utility to remove the drive letter assignment altogether.

DLMANIP: http://sta.c64.org/dlmanipdoc.html

Can use in your autoexec.bat as needed with 'DLMANIP DELETE <driveletter>'

[FishBowl]

Not sure if I am understanding well, but basically there is no need to have an extra primary partition for modern Linux, it would also work well inside of a logical drive as one part of an extended partition.

I do have some Linuxes installed for years now, on all of my machines, working fine.

In fact I do now have 10 logical drives inside of the extended partition of my 400 GB IDE boot HDD.

Win98 uses the only primary partition there, plus the first four logical drives, in FAT32 except of a 2GB FAT16 compressed one to hold '98SE CD, drivers, CDDB database and alike. Then 2k and XP have the next two, formatted as NTFS.

Followed by three logical drives for different Linuxes, formatted as ext2fs or similar, last is Linux swap.

Partitions and logical drives can be created or changed with XFDISK under DOS or Win9x, for example. Formatting comes later.

Also possible, to use qtparted from a Knoppix LiveCD or similar, which can also format.

In both cases, Win98 itself never ever recognized Linux 'partitions' over here, once they really were formatted. And this for never complained.

Nor did 2k or XP.

BTW, I am using the MBR boot manager from XFDISK, to select between Windows (C: drive, boot.ini then to select between windows versions) or one of the Linuxes. Easier than grub or lilo, and it can be modified or even restored from a DOS diskette.

Just won't work resp. deactivate itself if physical changes to the internal / boot time present HDDs done.

In such a case, simply / only Windows gets started. Selected '98SE, I am then able to use XFDISK to reconfigure the boot manager.

Edited September 11, 2008 by FishBowl

[BenoitRen]

Please note that there is a difference between a partition and a drive. A HDD is a drive. Segments of that drive are partitions.

[Drugwash]

I do have a Linux partition too on my HDD, somewhere over 128GB, while the BIOS can only "see" 137GB of the whole 160GB drive.

The reason why I never stumbled into this offer for formatting unknown partition is that I completely disabled the Recycle Bin function overall. I know this brings a great deal of responsability with it, but personally I think I can deal with it after all those years.

As a tip, I could say I'm perfectly able to read a Linux partition from within Win98SE, by using ex2fs, a plug-in for Total Commander.

Edited September 11, 2008 by Drugwash

[FishBowl]

Please note that there is a difference between a partition and a drive. A HDD is a drive. Segments of that drive are partitions.

Of course, I know do about the technical background. Won't mix up physical drives with anything logical.

Sorry, I am not a native English speaker, and even worse, haven't ever seen a non German localised Windows yet.

So sometimes I'm not really sure. how things are called in English versions