find target button

  • Thread starter Thread starter Paul Tierney
  • Start date Start date
Could it be because the file or program that the shortcut is pointing to is
no longer there?
 
Hi,

I've looked for a solution to this myself before - I'll work it out one
of these days. But meantime you might be interested in this workaround
which adds "Find Target" to the right-click context menu of shortcuts.
Even if it's not the ideal fix, it does save the triple click using
Properties and Find Target.
I got this years ago so can't give proper credit to the author.
Copy the text below between the dotted lines - but not the dotted lines
themselves - and paste into Notepad. Save the result as Find-Target.bat
or something similar - but note the .bat extension (no .txt).
Double click on the saved .bat file to activate. No restart required.

----------------------------------------------------------------------

@echo off
setlocal
set FT="%TEMP%\Find_Target.tmp"
set FTV="C:\Find_Target.vbs"
@echo REGEDIT4>%FT%
@echo.>>%FT%
@echo [HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\lnkfile\Shell\Find Target\command]>>%FT%
@echo @="wscript.exe \"C:\\Find_target.vbs\" \"%%1\"">>%FT%
@echo.>>%FT%
@echo.>>%FT%
@echo Dim param, filenam, targt, shortct>%FTV%
@echo Set param = WScript.Arguments>>%FTV%
@echo filenam = param (0)>>%FTV%
@echo Set WshShell = WScript.CreateObject("WScript.Shell")>>%FTV%
@echo Set shortct = WshShell.CreateShortcut(filenam)>>%FTV%
@echo targt = shortct.TargetPath>>%FTV%
@echo WshShell.Run "%windir%\explorer.exe /select," ^& Chr(34) ^& targt
^& Chr(34)>>%FTV%
regedit /s %FT%
del /q %FT%
endlocal
 
Hello again, Paul

I dug into the Find Target problem and think I've found the solution.
The clue for me was that I got the same problem when I went to Start =>
Run and typed in a folder path, e.g. "C:\Program Files". Normally this
should open Explorer at this folder, but I was getting the same "Open
with" window.

Anyhoo, I found an easy way to correct this - the problem is with the
Registry key "Folder" in HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Folder

Doug Knox has a fix as follows, with a small addition of my own:

Go to his site here:

http://www.dougknox.com/

Click on 'WinXP Fixes' on the left
Click on 'File Association Fixes'
Click on 'Folder Association Fix'
Save the .zip file to your Desktop

Locate the Registry key HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Folder

Highlight this key and go to File => Export
Export this key (click the "Selected branch" radio button at the
bottom) and save to your desktop as Folder_old.reg

Now, right-click and delete the Folder key

Double-click on Doug Knox's .reg file that you extracted to the Desktop
earlier to Merge the contents.

Try the Find Target button again.

It should work.

There's only one possible problem he doesn't cover. If you've installed
programs that add extra items to the right-click context for folders
these will be lost. So, we have to put back part of the Folder_old.reg
file. You can do this by activating the context menu additions within
the particular program(s), or:

Right-click on the file Folder_old.reg that you saved to the Desktop
and click on "Edit". This opens the file in Notepad. You now have to
delete a whole chunk of this file and leave some parts. The parts that
will remain are the parts that refer to "shellex". They are at the end
of the file. They begin with this line:

[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Folder\shellex]
@=""

Delete everything before this line, but keep the very first line of the
file intact. It is:

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

The finished result will look like this (without the dotted lines):

-------------------------------------------------

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Folder\shellex]
@=""

.... then a bunch of shellex lines

------------------------------------------------

When you're done, save the result as shellex.reg
BE SURE YOU SAVE UNDER A DIFFERENT NAME - DO NOT OVERWRITE THE ORIGINAL
Folder_old.reg file, JUST IN CASE YOU WANT TO PUT EVERYTHING BACK.

Double-click on the saved file shellex.reg to Merge the contents.

Retry the 'Find Target' button.
 
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