Question about options.

[symposes]

Heh.

Anyway, Seems like 2 to 3 times per day, explorer will lock up, i wont get any error messages, but what happens is my start bar stops responding, and icons on my desktop dont respond either.

The fastest way I fix this when it happens is to open task manager, close explorer, which doesnt give any error or error report message, then new task to restart explorer.

Aside from completely reinstalling windows yet again, are there things I can do to see if I can fix this?

I am not bothered by reinstalling windows, even if i format the system partition completely I can be back up in running in a few hours (full format, reinstall, and starting the updates,i got smart and keep a partition that has what amounts to a "restart" folder, all the programs and their updates when I get them, go there, then when i do reformat or restart for whatever reason, i just pop over and start installing stuff... hehe)

[Andara Bledin]

Quick question: Are you closing explorer or are you closing iexplore?

Explorer is actually the Windows program that opens and closes windows and files and the like and is an integral part of the OS.

Iexplore is Internet Explorer and closing that just closes IE.

Is your OS fully up to date and patched? Do you have any programs that affect your display such as a live desktop? Do you open up a lot of tabs or windows all at once?

My system goes wonky when I open too many windows in Firefox, and it takes a reset to put it back to normal. And I usually have to restore my live desktop when I do it.

^-.-^

[symposes]

its explorer itself, not iexplorer, and im fairly sure it didnt start right after the last thing I installed. So while I doubt it would be that, its always possible.

i dont use live desktop either. Ive only really noticed this problem for about 2 weeks now...
In the mornings, i will use the open in tabs feature to open a group of webpages all at once, however, i have been doing this for awhile, and its never caused any trouble

[Eric the Grey]

its explorer itself, not iexplorer, and im fairly sure it didnt start right after the last thing I installed. So while I doubt it would be that, its always possible.

i dont use live desktop either. Ive only really noticed this problem for about 2 weeks now...
In the mornings, i will use the open in tabs feature to open a group of webpages all at once, however, i have been doing this for awhile, and its never caused any trouble

Are you using IE, or Firefox, or some other browser? It could be one particular web page, or even an ad on said page. I've seen this behavior with Firefox before, when trying to open a page that has problems (badly written scripts) or a lot of flash ads on them.

Try opening them up one at a time and see what happens. It may just be the system is being overloaded, and you need to give it some time to finish and respond.



Eric the Grey

[symposes]

i use firefox, This only started happening recently, but its not just when i open webpages.
It has happened when my computer sits idle as well.

Ill be reading CS and have explorer quit responding. Its so random that I really cannot pinpoint it to one thing.

[Andara Bledin]

Yeah, I have to agree that it sounds like maybe you're overloading the system and the reason nothing responds is that it's already spending all it's cycles processing the last commands.

I've had that happen to me before, too. Although not often.

Just to be certain, you mean the OS when you say "explorer" right?

^-.-^

[Eric the Grey]

i use firefox, This only started happening recently, but its not just when i open webpages.
It has happened when my computer sits idle as well.

Ill be reading CS and have explorer quit responding. Its so random that I really cannot pinpoint it to one thing.

Here's something to try next time it happens:

Right-click on an empty spot of the the task-bar and click "Task Manager" You an open this earlier and minimize it too. Click on the "Process" tab and then click on the "Mem Usage" column heading twice to make the process using the most memory to the top. You can do the same with the CPU column heading.

Between these two, you might get an idea of what is causing the problem. More than likely, you've got one application that is hogging all the resources. You may have to kill it, or re-install the application.

If explorer.exe is the top of the list, it may be something more serious.



Eric the Grey

[UncleImpy]

See, I'm kinda echoing Andara here. If you're viewing web pages...you're using iexplore or a browser. Explorer. exe is, as already said, the file system browser, and if you shut that thread down, it automatically restarts itself...you wouldnt have to start a new task for it.

If it IS explorer.exe and you ARE having to manually start it...yeah, sounds like you have bigger problems.

[LostMyMind]

It's also possible you have a hidden spyware that is overloading explorer. (Most spyware will hide from task manager) Watch the cpu usage in task manager. While idle, the "System Idle Process" should be around 99. If it not, that means something is running in the background doing stuff.

There are many reason for explorer to "lock up". Some are legit while most aren't. Your best bet is to watch task manager to see which background app is causing the problem (providing that you're all patch/upgraded).

[Naaman]

May also be worth waiting, OP said

The fastest way I fix this when it happens is to open task manager, close explorer, which doesnt give any error or error report message, then new task to restart explorer.

.
Sometimes it hangs like that because explorer is giving a driver\dll a few more chances before it cacks out, after a minute it will blue screen and, maybe, give a useful error (make sure you can view any problems though Start > Control Panel > System > Advanced > Startup and Recovery > Settings > Untick "Automatically restart")

If it doesn't reboot but re-starting Explorer works (assuming you don't have Virii or malware - see above and here) check the error logs (Start > Control Panel > Admin Tools > Event viewer > System). You may see yellow warning triangles, match up the time to the crash and double click on the event, if nothing obvious springs to mind from the description then post the error and we may be able to help.

[CorDarei]

... and if you shut that thread down, it automatically restarts itself...you wouldnt have to start a new task for it....

If it IS explorer.exe and you ARE having to manually start it...yeah, sounds like you have bigger problems.

i've seen vista not restart the explorer.exe thread automatically.. so i wouldn't say that's a guarantee.

Also, as far as the explorer.exe and bigger problems. It may not be the case.

I run windows vista at work. I found out that our ticket system isn't compatible. How you ask?

I would have the video become corrupted to where the start bar would disappear, the gadgets on the left would all of the sudden be on the right, and then moving windows would leave trails, and it was very very random, sometimes i could go four hours, sometimes only 30 minutes...... but to fix that. I had to stop and then start the explorer.exe task.

finally troubleshoot it to the point to where if i didn't open the application, it NEVER happened.

so. if you're running vista, i would try to see if it may be one of the apps causing the problem instead of your windows.