In Windows Vista, the context menu for the “Folder” option in the “File” window is restored to its previous location, which is the “View” button on the left side of the window. This is a useful feature if you want to see what files are in a particular folder without having to open it. However, if you want to restore the search results for a particular file or folder, you must first change the search engine used by Windows Vista. To do this, open an elevated command prompt and type: netstat -an | grep ‘^(?:C:\windows\system32|C:\windows\system64)$’ This will show all active network connections and their status. The line that interests you will be at the bottom of this list, where it says “No such file or directory.” Change this line to: netstat -an | grep ‘^(?:C:\windows\system32|C:\windows\system64)$\.(?:inet|inet6)|(?:inet|inet6\.)+’ This will show all active network connections and their status as well as any associated folders. The line that interests you will be at the top of this list, where it says “Inet6.” Change this line to: The final step is to change Windows Vista’s search engine from Google Chrome to Bing. To do this, open an elevated command prompt and type: netsh bing setsearchengine=bing


The nice thing about the folder context menu is that the search window will be already set to search only that folder.

Manual Registry Hack

Open up regedit.exe through the start menu search or run box, and then browse down to the following key:

Find the LegacyDisable key on the right-hand side and either delete it, or rename it to something else. That’s all you have to do… now you can right-click on a folder and see the Search… option again:

This will open up the search window for that folder, which will be a lot faster than searching the entire drive.

Of course you could just use the F3 key while you have a folder open, which will show you the same window, and is typically simpler. I primarily use the context menu for quick access to search a folders from the shortcuts I’ve added to the quick launch.

Downloadable Registry Hack

Simply download, extract, and double-click on ReEnableFolderSearchMenu.reg to enter the information into the registry. There’s also an included DisableFolderSearchMenu.reg file to put things back to the SP1 default.

Download ReEnableFolderSearchMenu Registry Hack