Problems with startup programs in Win 7.

[The_Decimator]

Okay, so I would 1st like to point out that all the startup programs in the Startup folder are still there & all the ones in msconfig are still checked.

...Now that I got that out of the way, here's what happens: Everything was working fine until today, when I noticed that everytime I start Windows very few of my startup programs will load. Heck, my Windows Gadgets won't even load, of all things! Now here's where it gets weirder: If I end the explorer.exe process & restart it, more of the startup programs will come back but still, not all. Also, when i do this, I can't open any folders. & here's where it gets really weird: Every time I attempt to open a new folder, a new explorer.exe process pops up but I don't have, "Open folders in new process," enabled. If I get rid of all the processes, Windows Explorer will, in fact, shut down, except for 1. This is an explorer.exe process that no matter how many times I try to end, is still there, even when all the other explorer.exe processes have ended. (Which, as I said, when that happens, the result is like when you shut down the explorer.exe process normally.)

So, um, any ideas? I have literally no idea what's going on...

EDIT: Even weirder... the unstoppable explorer.exe process is taking up about 35 megabytes of RAM...

[+Xinok Subscriber²]

I've had that problem with unstoppable processes before, particularly with the Windows defragmenter. I still have no idea what causes it.

Explorer.exe is responsible for launching everything in startup, so the problem is most certainly located there. It might be a faulty shell extension (a DLL loaded in Explorer) which is causing the problems.

[The_Decimator]

  On 04/09/2012 at 19:30, Xinok said:

I've had that problem with unstoppable processes before, particularly with the Windows defragmenter. I still have no idea what causes it.

Explorer.exe is responsible for launching everything in startup, so the problem is most certainly located there. It might be a faulty shell extension (a DLL loaded in Explorer) which is causing the problems.

Wait... could it have anything to do with this?

http://lifehacker.com/5938342/clover-brings-chrome+style-tabs-to-windows-explorer

I've had it for a couple of days now, (basically, ever since Lifehacker wrote that article,) & there haven't been problem until now, but still...

[Guest xiphi]

Sysinternals could come in handy for this problem. I've always wanted to go all Mark Russinovich on a problem.

[The_Decimator]

Nope, uninstalling Clover didn't seem to do it...

[+Xinok Subscriber²]

  On 04/09/2012 at 20:25, MASTER260 said:

Nope, uninstalling Clover didn't seem to do it...

Well, Clover doesn't integrate into Explorer. Take a look at Autoruns, it can list all of the shell extensions loaded into Explorer (as well as all other startup items). Be careful what you change though; Don't start disabling things left and right, unless you want to make more problems for yourself.

[Noir Angel]

It sounds to me as if your tray icon cache, or the Windows icon cache could be corrupted. Have you tried clearing them?

Also, Explorer is only responsible for auto-launching things located under HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\Explorer\Run, all other auto starts are managed by Windows.

[+Xinok Subscriber²]

  On 04/09/2012 at 22:12, Javik said:

It sounds to me as if your tray icon cache, or the Windows icon cache could be corrupted. Have you tried clearing them?

Usually, the worst that results in is displaying the wrong icons. I don't think that would explain why he can't kill the process.

  On 04/09/2012 at 22:12, Javik said:

Also, Explorer is only responsible for auto-launching things located under HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\Explorer\Run, all other auto starts are managed by Windows.

On a 64-bit machine, there are 8 of these locations in the registry in total. Also, don't forget the startup folder in the start menu (one for the current user and another for all users). Then as I already mentioned, there are shell extensions like context menu items and property sheets, which are loaded by Explorer because they're integrated into Explorer.

[The_Decimator]

Don't worry guys, I used a batch script that opens multiple programs at the same time & just used them on the startup programs. I put it in the startup folder in case running it at startup would actually work, (either way, it would've been a lot easier to open all this programs at once,) & it did, so, yeah...