Cannot.Select.Multiple.Files

Yesterday, I was working as usual on Windows Vista and all a sudden, I discovered that I could no longer select multiple files in Windows Explorer. None of the shortcut keys seemed to work anymore i.e. CTRL+A, SHIFT+Left Mouse Click and rebooting could not solve the problem.

Other symptoms I encountered:

• Select All option in Organize button is disabled (greyed)
• Select All option in Edit menu is disabled (greyed)
• Mouse highlight over and drag does not work.

That makes copying files a pain as I have to click through each and everyone of them. *GRRRrrr*

I ran a search through the Internet and found out that some people were facing a similar problem. There were some suggestions to do a Reset on the folders but that didn't work for me.

I contacted my IT support and they said they have not received any reports on this before and therefore, could not provide me with a solution. Nothing showed up when I checked support.microsoft.com. Looks like I have no choice but to contact our 'MCS Vista grandmaster'.

This morning I received an e-mail detailing a fix. This is what you can do to bring Explorer back to its sanity.

1. Open Regedit
2. Navigate to HKCU\Software\Classes\Local Settings\Software\Microsoft\Windows\Shell\
3. Delete the Bags & BagMRU keys

Explorer should be back to normal then.

[Updated]
If you did the above and it doesn't work, try killing the Explorer process first and then run RegEdit.exe from Taskmgr to delete the keys. Reboot your system after that.

Disclaimer: If you don't know what's all that, don't do it ya. Messing with the registry is no play play.