I have this problem on two of my new laptops and can't seem to find a decent workable solution elsewhere in forum land. The problem is that on my Windows 7 Professional machines the right mouse button doesn't show the New Folder option and elsewhere as well (via Explorer) I'm unable to create new folders.
I'll be happy to get this tiny problem resolved and declare that Windows 7 is almost perfect! Thanks to all of you in advance for your contribution!
PS: None of the Vista solutions seem to work here!
Tried NewFolderFix.reg, didn't work - "Not all data was succesfully written to the registry. Some keys are open by the system or other processes."
Converted FolderFix.reg to .inf file and that worked.
Don't recall the problem appearing after an update.
MS answer to the explore process hanging (KB 972685) was to install the latest Visual C++ Update (vcredist.exe).
Nope. That didn't help either.
I haven't touched Silverlight since installation when Windows 7 hit the shelves. I tortured the RC installation before that, and never had problems there either.
UPDATE-
Logged back into Administrator account, still missing from there. Spent a bit more time looking instead of just fixing. Just yto make sure, logged back into my user account - still OK there.
Turns out the entries in HKCR\CLSID
were the culprit here. Reg file wouldn't take again (as above) but inf file fixed it. This key was unable to be entered from regfile, or altered or deleted in Regedit (Permissions).
Don't quite understand why a common key in HKCR needed to be entered separately for each user.
Here is the file I used to fix it. Just copy into notepad, save as newfolderfix.inf, rt-click and select Install
================================================================
[Version]
Signature=$Windows NT$
[DefaultInstall]
AddReg =REGEntries.AddReg
[REGEntries.AddReg]
HKCR,"%String0%",,0x0,"CLSID_ExecuteFolder"
HKCR,"%String0%\InProcServer32",,0x0,"ExplorerFrame.dll"
HKCR,"%String0%\InProcServer32","ThreadingModel",0x0,"Apartment"
[Strings]
String0 = "CLSID\{11dbb47c-a525-400b-9e80-a54615a090c0}"
=============================================================
Thanks to others who helped point me in the right direction.