From: george on
I started encountering what appears to be an unusual problem:

Windows 7 file Explorer started crashing and automatically restarting consistently on opening or browsing any directory containing Matlab .mat files!

Just for example, renamimg a .mat file extension to .matmat helps explorer to browse directory and renaming it back to .mat immediatelly crashes the explorer.

I looked int blogs and it appear to be happening to others but mainly with media (e.g. mpeg) files. On my machine, .mat is associated to Matlab via the registry but I can not even run file to program association utility as it uses explorer to search for all file extension on the machine so it crashes too. I did not have much luck with the blogs so I wandered if anyone of you has a suggestion how to solve this issue.
From: nanren888 on
"george " <artilogica(a)btconnect.com> wrote in message <hhg2j4$dq7$1(a)fred.mathworks.com>...
> I started encountering what appears to be an unusual problem:
>
> Windows 7 file Explorer started crashing and automatically restarting consistently on opening or browsing any directory containing Matlab .mat files!
>
> Just for example, renamimg a .mat file extension to .matmat helps explorer to browse directory and renaming it back to .mat immediatelly crashes the explorer.
>
> I looked int blogs and it appear to be happening to others but mainly with media (e.g. mpeg) files. On my machine, .mat is associated to Matlab via the registry but I can not even run file to program association utility as it uses explorer to search for all file extension on the machine so it crashes too. I did not have much luck with the blogs so I wandered if anyone of you has a suggestion how to solve this issue.

george,
Not help, but maybe info.
I have pretty plain Win7, x64, with office products loaded.
No such issues.
When new, it had .mat associated with office something.
All .mat files showed as shortcuts & would not show extensions, regardless of settings for show extensions & hide nothing.
Folder options, or equivalent, (non-registry editing) switched it to Matlab & have noticed no ill-effects.
Anyway, I guess that means that you are looking for something different: something in your setup.