"double clicking" can be troublesome for some. I can set the doubleclick SPEED to too fast in the control panel and people could write a post like yours. You didn't note if you tried slowing down the doubleclick speed.
Read http://www.dougknox.com/xp/scripts_desc/xp_folder_open.htm for a fix for the search opening on a click...
Bob
I'm using OS Windows ME. Recently I've noticed that I'm unable to open any file folders by double clicking on them. When I click on them, I keep getting the search option. As before when I clicked on a folder I would see what the folder contained, such as pictures, word documents etc. How do I change it back to the way it was before?