Right Click Menu Items Missing, Drag and Drop Broken, and Broken Thumbnails

Last Updated: 10/1/10

After installing Windows XP SP3 on my Windows XP SP2 computer, a bunch of stuff broke and started acting weird:

- Dragging icons on desktop did not work
- Drag and drop to copy files did not work
- Right clicking a file or folder showed a very basic menu that was missing all my extra menu items (i.e. AxCrypt, 7Zip, Winrar, etc....)
- Thumbnails for image format did not work (jpg, gif, etc...)

It took me a while to fix this. There was no simple fix that fixes everything. I am not sure exactly which solution fixed which issue, because I tried so many things:

To fix drag and drop:
http://aumha.org/regfiles.php

To fix right click menu missing context menu items (7zip, winrar, etc....):

open regedit browse to:
HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Directory\shellex

rename the key shellex to BAD_shellex

then open my computer, there will be a short delay, then right click a file. the menu should be more broken or fixed. If more broken, then rename the key back and see if that fixes everything.

To fix thumbnail problem:

REGSVR32 SHMEDIA.DLL
regsvr32 shimgvw.dll
regsvr32.exe /i shdocvw.dll
regsvr32 shell32.dll
regsvr32 /i shell32.dll

Keywords: windows xp sp3, drag and drop not working, broken, thumbnails not showing, missing right click menu items, context menu, shellex