Windows 7: File|Open & File|Save As does not work

Hi there,

Have you ever seen that File|Open and File|Save As does not work at all for any application? Basically nothing happens, the dialog never opens. I have tried in several browsers, Word, Visual Studio ... nothing. The common dialog to handle files never opens and as a result I can not do more "complex" things like choosing a file to upload, adding a reference in a Visual Studio project.

I have googled the web with no results. Any clues? I have a fairly new laptop running Windows 7 Ultimate x64bits. Antivirus (Microsoft Security Essentials) says the system is clean. I have rebooted several times with no luck either.

Any help will be appreciated. Thanks!
Miguel

It works in all our computer...

Try this:
Open an elevated CMD
and type sfc/scannow and hit enter. If there is a corrupted system file that is causing the problem the sfc/scannow utility will fix it..

It took a few minutes but well worth the wait ... once it finished this message was shown:

Windows Resource Protection found corrupt files and successfully repaired
them. Details are included in the CBS.Log windir\Logs\CBS\CBS.log. For
example C:\Windows\Logs\CBS\CBS.log

The log clearly says fixing a problem with common dialog resources. Now the question will be "who changed that dll?"

Anyway, I could not wait, went to Visual Studio, added a reference ... voala! It worked!

Thanks a lot,
Miguel

Ps. I am new in this forum, is there anything I need to do to get you some sort of credits for your answer?

Just click the scale in the upper middle-right of septprince's post to award him some rep...

You have already contributed back by posting the solution that worked...this also helps folks greatly

Good to see that your problem is fixed..
And thanks for the rep.....

I am having the same problem. It happens only with 32-bit programs, like office, when I want to save or open a file the dialog box takes many minutes to respond. Notepad, which is 64-bit, works fine.
I tried the sfc/scannow command with no success.
Can someone help me please?

I had the exact same problem so I installed all the current Windows 7 updates. This fixed the problem.

I am having the exact same problem as harlock15: 32-bit applications hang ("Not responding," but task manager shows that ample system resources are free) for about 75 seconds before a file|open or file|save as dialog box comes up. Furthermore, when the dialog box finally opens, it is "crippled" and I cannot fully navigate within it -- see the attached image. File|* dialog boxes within 64-bit applications still work fine.

I have tried CHKDSK and it returned no errors, but I cannot successfully run sfc /scannow -- it gets to "Verification 77% complete", and then returns the seemingly common "Windows Resource Protection could not perform the requested operation." It doesn't get any further if I boot into safe mode with command prompt, and the CBS.log file does not contain any obvious errors -- ieach scan just ends at the line, e.g:
2012-07-25 14:55:58, Info CSI 0000023c [SR] Beginning Verify and Repair transaction

Any thoughts about workarounds to reduce the amount of "not responding" time? Or is there some way to customize the file dialog box global settings specifically for 32-bit applications that might break me out of this rut?