Folder panel always opens when I enter a folder

Hi Perdition,
Do you mean the "file and folder tasks" pane on the left side. By closing it, do you mean clicking on the "folders" and switching to the classic view of windows 98.
Well, you can enable the classic view as default behaviour for xp as follows.
Goto TOOLS -> FOLDER OPTIONS (in any open windows explorer window, top menu) and under the GENERAL tab, choose "use windows classic folders" for the tasks option and click "ok".
This should do the trick.

HAPPY NEW YEAR

happy new year to you too and no i didn't mean file and folder tasks i mean the Folders navigational toolbar which docks on the left of the window and allows you to navigate from folder to folder with treeview, as in the one you see when you press Folders which is to the right of the Search button of my computer. I can't get the damn thing to just go away for good

Select "tools" from the top menu. Goto "folder Options" and click on it.
Under the "general tab", select "common tasks in folders", clcik apply, ok.
This should solve your problem.

Thanks for the thoughts guys but I tried both suggestions for the General Tab but neither of them worked unfortunately, this problem has been going on for a few months now and i've tried playing around with the folder options quite a bit not to mention reseting them but the problem remains, when you enter My Computer or any directory (which opens a new window), the folders toolbar pops on the left and it's really annoying heck I even removed Folders from the toolbars through Customize but it still pops up regardless.

Did you ever figure out a solution to this problem? I'm having the same trouble right now and it's driving me nuts. I'm thinking in may be a setting that comes standard in newly released versions of XP (i.e. no way to change it), especially after noting in XP Help -> Search "explorer" -> Show file and folder tasks in Windows Explorer, it gives this:

To show file and folder tasks in Windows Explorer
Open Windows Explorer.
Click the Close button in the right corner of the Folders list.

I've been looking around the registry, but to no avail...

afraid not Maybe it's something with drivers that went bad because of some virus or other in the past

If any system files are corrupted, open run from startmenu and type "sfc /scannow" without quotes. u may need ur xp cd also. This will repair any damaged system files. For more info, do a google search
If ur pc is winxp sp2, then u need a winxp sp2 cd.

In My Computer, click "Tools" menu, and then click "folder Options". Click the "File Types" tab.In the list of file types, highlight "(NONE) Folders" Click "Advanced" button, In the "Actions" box, highlight "open", now Click "Set Default".
Try this and post back. Hopefullt this should do the trick. I've tried it and it works.