FIXED: Windows Explorer FTP Registry Branch (19th September 2011)

Uninstalling Google Chrome broke the way I use Windows Explorer as an FTP client. The only solution was to import a working FTP branch from another Windows XP machine.

The correct registry branch is below. You can Copy and Paste it into a new .reg file using Notepad. Save the file, then double-click it to update this part of the registry. 

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\ftp] 
@="URL:File Transfer Protocol" 
"EditFlags"=dword:00000002 
"ShellFolder"="{63da6ec0-2e98-11cf-8d82-444553540000}" 
"Source Filter"="{E436EBB6-524F-11CE-9F53-0020AF0BA770}" 
"FriendlyTypeName"="@ieframe.dll,-905" 
"URL Protocol"="" 
"BrowserFlags"=dword:00000008 

[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\ftp\DefaultIcon] 
@="C:\\PROGRA~1\\MOZILL~1\\FIREFOX.EXE,1" 

[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\ftp\shell] 
@="open"

[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\ftp\shell\open]

[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\ftp\shell\open\command]
@="C:\\PROGRA~1\\MOZILL~1\\FIREFOX.EXE -requestPending -osint -url \"%1\""

[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\ftp\shell\open\ddeexec]
@="\"%1\",,0,0,,,,"

[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\ftp\shell\open\ddeexec\Application]
@="Firefox"

[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\ftp\shell\open\ddeexec\Topic]
@="WWW_OpenURL"

The multitude of speechmarks, wiggly brackets and backslashes looks like an error. But that just seems to be the way some registry values have to be.

Now the Favourites in Windows Explorer for FTP sites open properly, directly in Windows Explorer with no error messages! The authentication details which I saved from File > Login As... work automatically, just like they used to. Hooray!

Feedback

An e-mail from Marcus Bölke confirms this fix worked for him:

Hi,

I just would like to thank you for writing this fix description!

I encountered the same issue you described and spent hours worriyng about what's going on^^

Thanks for this fix, it worked out fine

greets from germany

Cause

At the end of the Google Chrome Uninstaller, it asks which browser should be made the default. I selected Mozilla Firefox as that’s what I use for all web browsing. This seems to be when the uninstaller screwed up the HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\ftp branch of my Windows registry.

Google Chrome has never been set as my default web browser, I downloaded it directly from Google for testing web pages. So this final step of its uninstaller was completely pointless – as well as troublesome!

Symptoms

Following ftp:// shortcuts from my desktop, my Favourites menu or typing them into the Address bar of Windows Explorer (with and without the username:password syntax) would give this same error message:

Windows cannot open ‘null’. Make sure you typed the name correctly, and then try again.

It would then start Internet Explorer 8 and try opening the address. At first, it showed the File > Login As... window so I could provide login details. After a while that window no longer appeared as it remembered my details.

The FTP folder was displayed a bit like an old Apache folder listing. There was no upload or drag and drop, it was just static links in an automatically generated HTML page.

The settings in Tools > Options (Advanced tab) were the same as normal. Chrome had not affected them.

When viewing the FTP listing in IE8, the Page > Open FTP Site in Windows Explorer menu item was available. Clicking it produced this error message:

This FTP site cannot be viewed in Windows Explorer.