When I opened explorer, I had 2 panes. left side showed my docs, my computer,etc. under my computer it listed the drives and highlighted C drive and right pane showed C drive. Now I get a left pane greyed out but right pane is same, Why? how do I change it back? I tried all options under view and tools but none change it. Also now my search has changed to a window like win explorer too. I had some problems with internet explorer and uninstalled it and took out some references to IE in registry. thank you Steven

This might not help since you have made registry changes.
In Folder Options make sure you have checked the button "Show common tasks in folders"