Can’t open Windows Explorer from SharePoint

A couple of weeks ago I made some changes to my computer to speed it up.  The usual stuff like fixing up the Registry, defragmenting the disks, etc.  The machine did speed up but not as much as I wanted.  

So, I went further and turned off some of the Win7 graphics features and turned off some services.

Turning off graphics features is not a big deal but the services … well you have to be careful with those, as I found out.

In the week following my tuning I noticed that I couldn’t open Windows Explorer from the “Action” menu of a SharePoint site.  Now what would that have to do with a local service?  

Turns out that the “WebClient” service is needed.  I turned it back on and the SharePoint “Open with Windows Explorer” menu item works again.

Who’d a thunk?