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).

Most google searches for this turn up a malware infection due to a vulnerability. I'd suggest trying a free, online scan to check. Here's one that I like: http://housecall.trendmicro.com

Okay, thanks

Malware scan turned up nothing. Any other ideas?

Just a guess, but try running "sfc.exe /scannow" (without the quotes) as an Administrator from the Run dialog (Go to Start and type in "Run" - at the top of the search box, right click on Run and select "Run as Administrator")