My cousin's Sony laptop is having a strange directory issue. When you try to open any directory (be it C:\\, or C:\\Users\...\Music, or whatever) the default browser immediately pops up and displays some sort of error, usually something to the effect of "navigation error", etc. We've uninstalled browsers and rebooted to no avail. Maxthor has offered the most helpful insight by displaying the following string in its location bar:

res://shdocvw.dll/navcancl.htm

I recognize it as a registry file, but I am not sure what it means. "Nav Cancel" runs in line with the error messages we have been getting from other browsers. He recently installed avast! and it scanned clean. His computer is running abnormally slow, though, so there might be something there after all. I know that a free virus scanner is not a final diagnosis to the actual health of a computer.

Anyway, I was wondering if anyone else has encountered this...? Again, this happens with every directory... but the most interesting part is that once the browser is initialized and running, after he clicks away the error messages, he can continue browsing his directories like normal. I don't understand what is going on at all.

He is running Vista Home Premium (32b).

Hi astrosoup, welcome to the PCHF.

Unfortuantely it appears that you've been going down the wrong path.
Navcancl.htm is just a standard webpage installed with vista to say "navigation canceled" when you hit the stop button in IE or Firefox or any other browse before the page is loaded.

C:\Users doesn't require any extra software other than Windows to browse to it.
Do you receive this error message when you goto Start -> Computer -> Local Disk (C: ) -> Users ??
What if you right click on the start button and select Open All Users ??

Hey, Thanks for fast response! Yeah, I was looking into it a little and came to the same conclusion. I am kind of doing this over the phone with him, so its all I have to go on at this time.

Like you said, I shouldn't need any other software other than Windows to browse the computer, yet Windows insists on opening a web browser and keeping it running in the background in order to browse the computer. The error pops up anytime he opens any directory. Even when he opens C: itself.

To clarify, this occurs no matter how you go about selecting a directory, be it through start menu shortcuts, favorite links, etc. (Although opening "Computer" doesn't do it... only after he gets into the hard drive).

Hmmm, it sounds like he's got the default application running as something other than windows...Give me a minute and i'll see if i can find anyone else with the issue out on the web...

Unfortunately nothing substantial out there...
However, give this a shot

• Open My Computer window.
• Press the ALT button, Click Tools, Folder Options, then click File Types.
• From the list, locate the entry FOLDER with extension of (NONE).
• Click Advanced, select Explore, then Set Default
• Click OK and close the dialog.

Haha, Alt brings up the menu. U r brilliant. Anyway, I don't see file types under folder properties on my comp. It should be a tab right? I will see if this works on his.