Error: Your client does not support opening this list with Windows Explorer

While working with a customer having Windows Vista and using SharePoint 2010 I encountered the following error.

Scenario: Clicked on a document library, and used the Open with Windows Explorer option.  This option is disabled whenever an incompatible browser is used.

Following is the error screen:

 

Solution

I tried the following solution steps:

1. Ensured the Internet Explorer version is 32 bit

2. Added the site to Trusted Sites inside browser

3. Ensured WebClient Service was running

4. Modified the Registry

1. Open regedit.exe
2. Located HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINESYSTEMCurrentControlSetservicesWebClientParameters
3. Modified BasicAuthLevel to 2
4. Restarted the Machine

Solved: Now the error disappeared.  Thanks for the MSDN Documentation.

Screen Shot of Registry Key

Note For security purposes, Windows Vista and Windows XP SP2 disable Basic authentication in the Web Distributed Authoring and Versioning (WebDAV) Redirector.

BasicAuthLevel

Values for BasicAuthLevel are:

• 0 – Basic authentication disabled
• 1 – Basic authentication enabled for SSL shares only (default value)
• 2 – Basic authentication enabled for SSL shares and for non-SSL shares

Reference

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/841215