re: Explorer.exe crashes
Monday, October 24, 2005 at 12:30 pm
Windows XP Annoyances Discussion Forum
Posted by somebody
(1 messages posted)
READ THIS !!
by Zubair Alexander
SEND PRINT RATE AND COMMENT
October 2005
Zubair: I'm experiencing Explorer crashes on my Windows XP Professional SP2 computer.
Whenever I right-click a folder, I get the following error, "Windows Explorer has
encountered a problem and needs to close. We are sorry for the inconvenience." I’ve
used 4 different anti-spyware programs to make sure my system is clean. My anti-virus
program is also up to date and I have all the latest and greatest patches from Windows
Update.
I’ve also noticed some other weird behaviors. I can right-click and open a single
file but when I right-click multiple files and try to open them at once, nothing
happens. Short of reinstalling Windows XP, what else can I do to solve this problem?
— Name withheld
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The symptoms that you’ve described are usually caused by a bad Context Menu handler.
Basically, a Context Menu handler is a handler that adds shell extensions to the
Context Menu. For example, the handler is responsible for the context-menu commands
that you see when you right-click a folder. Various programs can add their own context-sensitive
commands, in addition to the default cut, copy, delete, rename, etc. that already
exist. Symantec anti-virus adds “Scan for Viruses…” option and lots of utilities
add options for users’ convenience.
Unfortunately, not all software developers follow the strict guidelines for writing
the code. Freeware and shareware authors are not the only ones to be blamed for buggy
software; major software vendors can also be guilty of writing poorly coded Context
Menu handlers. So how many Context Menu handlers do you have running on your Windows
XP computer and how do you find out which one is the culprit?
Before I tell you the method I use to solve the above problem, I should point out
that a bad Context Menu handler can also cause some other problems. A friend tells
me she experienced a problem where she would right-click a folder and select Properties,
but it didn’t do anything. Or she would right-click a folder and it would take unusually
long before she finally sees the Context Menu. I’ve experienced a situation where
right-clicking any desktop icon would cause the hourglass to show for a while, and
then my taskbar would disappear. My screen would go black for about 20-25 seconds
and then reappear when Explorer restarts itself after the crash. This particular
situation is known to be caused by an incompatible Context Menu handler from DivX.
(DivX is an advanced digital media format that lets you play, create, and share digital
videos. The DivX codecs can compress video to a small size without losing any noticeable
quality.) To ensure that you are using a version of DivX that’s compatible with Windows
XP SP2, you can download the latest version of DivX by clicking here. DivX 6.0, DivX
Pro 6.0, and DivX Converter have been available since June 14. You might want to
read the section on disabling Data Execution Prevention (DEP) in Windows XP SP2 to
understand the consequences.
You might be wondering, what if my Explorer crashes are not related to DivX? How
do I find out which particular Context Menu is responsible for the crashes? The easiest
way to figure that out is to use a Shell Extensions Manager called ShellExView. This
utility allows you to solve Context Menu problems in Windows Explorer. Once you’ve
installed the tool, sort the Context Menu by Type so you can view all the Context
Menu items together as in figure 1.
Figure 1. Open up ShellExView and sort the Context Menu items that are running by
Type. (Click image to view larger version.)
As you can see from the screen shot, some of the extensions have a pink background,
such as Acrobat Elements Context Menu. These are all non-Microsoft extensions as
you can tell by looking at the Product Name column. To figure out which Context Menu
item could be the cause of Explorer crashes, what you should do is highlight one
extension at a time and then disable it by either right-clicking, or use F7, to see
if it fixes the problem. If it doesn’t, re-enable the extension and move on to the
next extension. You do not need to reboot your computer to see the effect. Go through
all the non-Microsoft extensions first and then try disabling Microsoft extensions
one-by-one.
The last time I encountered this problem on a client’s computer it took about 30
seconds to solve the problem using ShellExView. The first non-Microsoft extension
that I disabled was Spy Sweeper’s extension on the user’s computer and it turned
out to be the culprit. I discovered the same problem on two other computers and they
too were running the exact same version of Spy Sweeper and experiencing similar crashes
in Explorer. Disabling Spy Sweeper’s extension also solved their problems.
Let's Hear It—How often have you experienced the type of Explorer crashes listed
in this article? Do you have any other solutions that have worked for you? Please
send me an e-mail at alexander@techgalaxy.net. The best solutions will appear in
a future column and one submitter will be sent a book, Protect Your Windows Network
From Perimeter to Data, by Johansson and Riley (Addison-Wesley)
- Written in response to:
- Explorer.exe crashes (George: Wednesday, August 20, 2003 at 5:18 pm)
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