[RESOLVED] Explorer.exe keeps crashing

[abhijit]

Hi Folks,
I have checked for spyware and viruses on my PC. The scans don't show up anything. Yet my explorer crashes everytime I right click the mouse on a file.

Anyone encountered this problem before? I am using Windows 2000 Professional.

Regards,
Abhijit

[wiz126]

looks like registry problem.
did you recently uninstall a software that add somekind of an item to the file right click menu? if yes this might be it. You might wona download a free registry fixer. there more then few of them and some of the best once are actually free.
spyware and viruses scanners only scann for that, if windows right click menu crash its problebly the registry a key for something is wrong or keep on crashing

[abhijit]

tried a registry cleaner. didn't turn up anything. i need to get this system formatted now.

[dglienna]

My sister had the same problem on a W2K Workstation. I just downloaded Fx and put it on a CD for her. I even tried reinstalling IE, but it woudn't open. She's just using Fx. Less viruses also, as she has 4 kids.

[dee-u]

When I was using Fx and tried to run Explorer it always crashed hence I un-installed Fx and everything went fine...

[dglienna]

I have them both on my laptop, and they both work fine. Of course, Fx is on a different partion than my OS is.

[abhijit]

Guys, I am talking of explorer.exe and not IE. IE works fine.
I have fx and recently I also installed something called Flock.

[dglienna]

Never heard of it, but that looks like the most likely suspect. explorer.exe worked fine on my sisters computer, and most certainly does on my laptop.

[RobDog888]

Well if it didnt run fine on your laptop then you wouldnt be able to run windows.

Have you tried to run a Windows Repair from your Windows CD?

[Jacob Roman]

Guys, I am talking of explorer.exe and not IE. IE works fine.
I have fx and recently I also installed something called Flock.

The funny thing about Internet Explorer is that it's more than just a web browser. It's a part of the OS and needs it to run Explorer, which is the windows where you can view the files/folders and all that. I think they are somewhat the same program sorta speak. I tried uninstalling IE and killed my OS and ultimately killed my computer doing so. Shame on me and my FX addictions.

[dglienna]

Not according to the court decree. It said that you could remove IE. OK maybe note explorere. Talk about a loophole.

[kaihirst]

Hi,

right then Explorer.EXE and IEexpolroer.exe are two different things altoghether, this I shouldnt have to itereate but there you go.

To the problem..


Terminal Im afraid.

Epxplorer.exe is the windows shell and the core of the interface operting system. my guess is that your PC ran out of virtual memory, kernel processing threads fell over, and took whatever you were running down with it.

This is non recoverable as once the kernel has tried increasing the virtual memory after a resource low warning the first thing it tried to write into and over is the display memoryat positions 00x7oe to 001x70e1 which are read only explicit positions. Nothing you can do apart from re-install windows.

HOWEVER.. This what everybody will tell you.. this isnt the cas as there is a hack job you cna do on this to save it (Might wantt o note this down as this works on 2000 servers!!!!)

1. The virtual memory allocation is by default 500mb and not exceeding 800mn. increase to.. say 800mb min with a not exceeding 1500mb. this will give the OS some breathing space and buy you a bit of time before the next crash...

2. RE-Install 2000 SP4 from microsoft.com.

3. restart.

4. If in the event that it does bomb out on you and kills explorer. Do this. CTRL ATL DEL
and go to task manager and click new task. Navigate to the winNT folder, and startup explorer.exe again, now with any bit of luck, this should stablise and run. Now go to processes, and click on explorer.exe, and give it a high prioroty memory alocation.

This should alleviate the problem. personally, I would do this in safe mode if I were you.

Now for the cleanup...

your going to have to re-install everything tht you were using at the instanciated time of the system failure. Reason being that explorer.exe is the heart of windows besides the kernel and when it falls over, everything goes..

major programs that are psecifically affected majorly are as follows

Adobe photoshoip
Macromedia Fireworks
Macromedai Flash
Macromedia Director
Visual Studio
Internet Explorer
Paint Shop pro
Delphi

After you do all this, youll find that your system will never be the same again. Its similar to a man having a heart attack, ill be abit wobbly at first, but will get back on its fet, so treat it witha bit of kid gloves and go easy on if the first couple of hours andlet it run.

My advice to you is run windows explorere, and navigate around, open some files in some graphics programs, and geeral multi task it and se how it goes.

This is only a temporary meausre and would probably plan on getting your essential fiels on CD-backup and reinstalling windows altogether with the time your bought yourself.

Good Luck!!

Hope this helps

Kai

[kaihirst]

Hi

Also, if the problem STILL persists (probably will..) open when it crashes again, click cancel and debug and open an instance of Visual Studio..

Windows willnever allow you to access and debug the kernel trhead alocations as there read only, but it will reset explorer.exe without a disruption of service to windows and sort it, but only afte your gone through the cleaning process detailed above.

Ta

Kai

[penagate]

right then Explorer.EXE and IEexpolroer.exe are two different things altoghether, this I shouldnt have to itereate but there you go.

Do you honestly believe that? If so, open up a new instance of Windows Explorer, and type in an web address into the address bar. Press enter and watch it magically turn into Internet Explorer. Sure it's still explorer.exe and not iexplore.exe, but they're both wrappers for the same components.

[dglienna]

or try to kill explorer.exe in process explorer. that won't work at all. killing iexplore won't crash the os.

[penagate]

Killing neither process crashes the OS.

Explorer.exe contains the shell components as well as the browsing components, so you do lose the taskbar and desktop. Bust out the task manager again, reload explorer.exe and they all come back.

[dglienna]

Hmmm. I tried it and was worried for a few seconds. It killed the fan on my laptop, and a few windows were looking for file inuts. Once I started explorerr, it was cool, though.

[kaihirst]

If you dont believe me on what explorere actually does. LOOK the damn thing in any Wondiws OS product catalogue, or technical sepcification white paper and youll see what explorer is.

Ina nushell its the Windows shel display interface that basically windows itself sits on and gives your direct control to the kernel processing. t wont crash windows if exploere goes down, but it will damage it severely as if it crashes, the knock on effect brings the OS down, not the crash itself.

Any half knowedgeable IT administrator should and would know this, and would know what memory it controls and read/writes to....

Believe what you belive on this one pal, but I know im right and the rest are on the wrong track....

ta

Kai

[abhijit]

Never heard of it, but that looks like the most likely suspect. explorer.exe worked fine on my sisters computer, and most certainly does on my laptop.

Flock is an independent Mozilla build. They are targetting the firefox user base. Frankly they could have just build another extension, but they had a lot of resources, so they went ahead and build everything.

[penagate]

If you dont believe me on what explorere actually does. LOOK the damn thing in any Wondiws OS product catalogue, or technical sepcification white paper and youll see what explorer is.

Why don't you back up your facts, which no-one else seems to agree upon, by providing links to these "technical sepcification white papers" ? Somehow I've never run across this view before.

Also, can I suggest you run a spell checker before you post. RobDog has a good one in the Codebank. It does rather undermine the credibility of your posts when almost every word is misspelt.

Ta

[k1ll3rdr4g0n]

How about we discuss the whole iexplorer/explorer somewhere else children? .

Anyways, try to do a repair/reinstall.
I know there's a fix for it somewhere, I just don't know what its called, how it works or anything. Because I know other people have had this problem. What ver IE do you have? Do you have all the SP for 2k?

Or you could try a different shell, cause explorer sucks. When it crashes itself on my computer, all the items don't come back in the systray.

[kaihirst]

Exactly..

Once the Shell hwas gone down, it never works properly for back office serives such as SQL Server Services manager (one I always notice), ETC..

Before you try anything rash as an re-install, re-install SP4 for your OS under safe mode or normal (if the shell bombs again, acess IE from the Task manager , whch still runs) and this should repair the thread allocation.

if not, reach for the 2K CD and reinstall..

Kai

[k1ll3rdr4g0n]

I believe there is a repair* feature on the win 2k CD.
On the Win XP Pro I know theres a repair where it recopys all the windows files, and doesn't delete anything you just have to reinstall some of the dirvers. (Like the chipset drivers).

[dglienna]

There is. I have used it before.

[abhijit]

Returned my laptop to the office. Now let the guys figure out whats wrong with it. Meanwhile while my Lenovo Thinkpad is being fixed, I have a Dell Latitude

Abhijit