Explorer Crash after installing "TakeOwnership.reg"

ThereWasADream · 11 Sep 2014

Ever hear of a nice context menu you can install that allows you to take ownership of all files and subfiles? I have, and it messed up my explorer. It will frequently crash when I right-click folders, but most often when trying to right click drives.

I have tried:

1. Windows 7 repair tool
2. Windows 7 repair using command prompt to reload registry from 4 days before this error occurred
3. Registry repair tool from this site
4. Registry repair tools from around the internet
5. Manually deleting context menu handlers and seeing if it helps (fixes it, but is inconsistent and not permanent, it will start crashing again)
6. Using shellex viewer and another program similar to it

My dump files are attached in a zip file.

THANK YOU SO MUCH IN ADVANCE FOR ANY HELP!!! :)

Brink · 12 Sep 2014

Hello ThereWasADream, and welcome to Seven Forums.

Please go ahead and upload a copy of the TakeOwnership.reg file you used, and I'll be happy to post back with a .reg file that will completely undo any registry entry it made to remove it from your context menu to hopefully sort this for you. :)

ThereWasADream · 12 Sep 2014

Oh, that's another thing I forgot - I also tried simply uninstalling it. I have uploaded both the "Install" and "Uninstall" reg files. See what you can do but I doubt it will work, I've run both multiple times.

Brink · 12 Sep 2014

After looking at them, I don't see how they affected your context menus like that. Possibly some other item may be at fault instead.

If you like, you should be able to do a system restore using a restore point dated before you had this issue to undo and fix it.

ThereWasADream · 12 Sep 2014

Thank you, Brink. I was afraid it might come to that. It is odd, though. I never had this problem prior to using this tool.

I did accidentally use the "un-extracted" versions of these files before I extracted and used the actual files. Could that have caused this problem? I will upload them here. In case my description is confusing, these are the files contained inside the .zip folder I downloaded.

ThereWasADream · 12 Sep 2014

Except, it looks like the exact same file...size and all...I will upload the .zip too just in case it extracted the files during upload.

Brink · 12 Sep 2014

Nar, it would be the same extracted or not extracted.

Hopefully you will have a restore point available that's not to far back.

ThereWasADream · 12 Sep 2014

I don't have any restore points, I have never been able to get it to work right for me, although it's been a while. I have just been backing up my files regularly. I just stinks to reinstall everything.

Could you or anyone else take a look at those dump files, though? It's supposed to give an indication of what went wrong when Explorer crashed...I'd hate to reinstall my OS and find out later that it could have been fixed.

Brink · 12 Sep 2014

I'm afraid that I have no idea about the dump file.

Usually, it's some installed 3rd party program that added a context menu is at fault for messing up right click or context menus. Was there some program you installed before this started to happen?

ThereWasADream · 12 Sep 2014

Kingdoms DLC for Medieval Warfare II...and a mod for it (Third Age Total War), but I am pretty sure it doesn't have any reg files attached. A Razer Naga mouse. I think that's it.