"Open File" pulldowns collapse - any ideas?

Running on Vista 64 (Gateway FX6800-01e) - seems to be a bit too fast. OK, the issue is regardless of the application, when I go to open file, save file, save as etc.. when the explorer file manager window opens, and you pull down the "Look in:", it collapses again very quickly. Hence, to change directory, I need to literally work back via the side panel and work down from "My computer" - select the drive yada yada yada... a real pain. This is true for Adobe apps, sony vegas, quickbooks, quicken etc.. but not with Microsoft Office 2007, wordpad etc.. Seems that Microsoft implements a larger or newer version of the filemanager for these tasks. Here is the difference (lite version - shows up in Adobe apps, Etc.. and the pulldown quickly collapses and disappears - unusable):


Robuster version (Microsoft apps):


Any ideas on if it is possible to "force" the newer filemanager onto all the non-ms apps? Thanks all in advance. - VV