Renaming any folder produces "Could not find this item". Clicking "Try Again" always works. Why?

Anonymous
2009-11-11T13:37:01+00:00

This is not the same issue as similar postings that have to do inability to delete folders that contain zero byte files. 

If I try to rename any folder in my system, I get "Could not find this item" with the choices "Try Again" and "Cancel". When I click "Try Again", it always succeeds. So - my system isn't crippled - but it is so totally annoying. I can even right-click on my desktop, and choose "New...  Folder" and type in a name, and I get "Could not find this item". The interesting thing is that the item's name does change even before I click "Try Again". 

If I have a folder named "Folder1" and I rename it to "Folder2", I get the error that "Folder1" Could not be found - which is actually true, as it is already renamed to "Folder2".

Why is Windows 7 looking for the old folder name after renaming? I've also disabled AVG's live scanner to no avail.

Any thoughts or suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks.

Windows for home | Previous Windows versions | Files, folders, and storage

Locked Question. This question was migrated from the Microsoft Support Community. You can vote on whether it's helpful, but you can't add comments or replies or follow the question.

0 comments No comments
Answer accepted by question author
Anonymous
2010-04-29T20:39:55+00:00

I finally got it.

I used the same solution for the similar issue in Windows Vista. Once i got to my company laptop, i exported this 2 registry keys.

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\FolderDescriptions

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Wow6432Node\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\explorer\FolderDescriptions

Merged into my pc and voilà !!

The 'shell' command also works again (ex: shell:personal brings up the account folder)

I uploaded the reg file and you can get it here http://cid-fb5a28bc4a1cc9b6.skydrive.live.com/self.aspx/Public/Folder%5E_fix%5E_win7%5E_x64/FolderDescriptions.rar

This is for Win7 x64. Use it at your own risk.

Was this answer helpful?

60+ people found this answer helpful.
0 comments No comments

95 additional answers

Sort by: Most helpful
  1. Anonymous
    2012-03-02T13:22:41+00:00

    That worked no more problems with making a new folder or renaming a folder!

    Thanks in advanced

    /Joe

    Was this answer helpful?

    0 comments No comments
  2. Anonymous
    2012-03-01T14:12:09+00:00

    Much kudos varredor, this worked like a charm on my Win7 x64 laptop (sp1).

    Well, it worked 2nd time; The 1st time I didn't use the 'run as administrator' option with regedit, I mean why would my being signed on as an administrator give me administrator rights without having to ask for them, right?

    Windows foibles aside, I greatly appreciate your help in eliminating this infuriating quirk.

    peace, out

    Was this answer helpful?

    0 comments No comments
  3. Anonymous
    2012-02-29T20:33:06+00:00

    Thanks alot Varredor ...... It's working for me

    Was this answer helpful?

    0 comments No comments
  4. Anonymous
    2011-12-17T18:51:57+00:00

    I have win7 64bit professional. I have created a new user account and it still happens, I create a new folder and get the same error everyone else is getting, I click retry and it then creates the new folder. I have run sfc/scannow and it shows "Windows Resource Protection did not find any integrity violations."

    There are two thing that I did that caused these problems and I have only been able to resolve one of them thus far.

    1st. I un-installed Internet Explorer. My "Devices and Printers", folder is empty, no icons, although the printers were still working, I could not select them to make any changes, ie share to another user etc.

    I tried to re-install IE but this failed too, I kept getting an error that it was already installed?

    I could see the menu items for Internet Explorer (64-bit) and Internet Explorer, but when I clicked on either of them nothing would happen, then I came across an article that a user said he had same problem after removing IE and that he also tried a Beta version of IE, I had forgotten that I too had tried a Beta version of IE and after the Beta usage IE would not work as mentioned earlier. His article he mention un-installing all references to any IE updates and then he was able to install the latest IE, I did this and it worked! I now have IE9 and my "Devices and Printers" icons are back in the folder and working. unfortunatly now that I have IE9 back any link inside my hotmails do not launch when clicked on from any email in Windows Live Mail I have installed locally on my computer from any of the browsers like they did before?

    Now If I access my emails while in a browser and click on an embeded link it will launch the default web browser and I even set the other browser Firefox as the default browser and it make no difference.

    2nd. I used to have a Linksys NAS200 with two hard drives installed. I had used the move option within the "My Documents" properties to relocate from the Windows default of C: to one of the NAS hard drives as D:\My Documents then the NAS decided to fail.

    Normally I would turn on my computer and after a few seconds the NAS would boot up it was slow, but everything was fine, until one day I booted the computer up and got several errors that Windows could not find the "My Documents" folder also I got some Network drives did not load error message. I dumped the Linksys NAS it was no longer being made and Linksys support of it was a total failure even while it was still being produced. I added an external 1 Tera byte hard drive and wanted to do the same thing I did with the NAS and re-locate the "My Documents" folder to it. I could never get it to work even though I put the My Documents back on drive C: in it's default folder "My Documents" under "Users" my name.

    But when I tried the same procedure under properties to move the folder I would get another error and it would fail?

    So now I have the My Documents" folder as a shortcut under Libraries and the actual folder resides on my external drive D:.

    I have tried the Windows restore, Windows Repair and none of these options have fixed Windows 7 Professional. If it had not been for the amount of programs I have currently installed on this production computer I would have re-installed Windows a long time ago and been done it it. Oh when will Windows be as simply to run as my Linux box which has tons of free programs and yes it has issues too, but nothing that has stumped me like the problem mentioned above with Windows.

    Was this answer helpful?

    0 comments No comments