Explorer.exe Stops Responding at Random

[Excalibur]

Randomly at times my Explorer.exe will stop responding and then restart itself, ( i know sometime it happens when i am navigating folders) after that happens then when i click something on the desktop or whatever it will stop responding again. I have no clue what might be causing this. Eventually it stops that for a while but then does it again later.

I am using Windows 7 RTM 64-bit and have 4 GB Ram, i don't think its a virus or anything because i am very careful and use Kaspersky (KIS) aswell.

Also not sure if its related the memory usage seems a bit high even when idle, i know part of it is KIS but it still seems a bit high, but when KIS actually is scanning sometimes the memory usage reaches at or near 100%.

Anyway any help would be greatly appreciated.

[PnP]

kis not compatible with windows 7... try other antivirus..

[Kool Box]

I think it could well be that as I am using KIS myself and rarely but it has happened a few times, explorer will crash when I right click or click on a file/folder. They are working on an update but for the time being I might temporarily use McAfee antivirus & Outpost firewall.

[Stace]

I think it could well be that as I am using KIS myself and rarely but it has happened a few times, explorer will crash when I right click or click on a file/folder. They are working on an update but for the time being I might temporarily use McAfee antivirus & Outpost firewall.

Hi there

I had exactly the same problem with the x64 version of Windows 7 RTM. I thought it might be antivirus as well (given that's all I had installed that was extra to the windows install) as I was too using Kaspersky 2010 so tried a clean install - this time using MSE. Same problem occured. Random explorer crashes - several times a day, and sometimes several times an hour.

As a shot in the dark, I clean installed again - this time installing the x86 version of Windows 7. Installed Kaspersky 2010 and tested - no issues at all. Removed Kaspersky and tried MSE (as I really like MSE). Again, no issues have been seen since, so I can only imagine there might be a driver issue causing an odd issue with a pience of hardware in my laptop when running x64.

I've been running the x86 version ever since and it's been faultless, so I'm happy

Edited September 7, 2009 by Stace

[Excalibur]

The thing is i just got Kaspersky the other day but this has been happening for a while, i used to use AVG. Is there anyway of knowing what could be causing it, cause i really don't want to have to do a fresh install.

[Excalibur]

Also i just found out svchost.exe is using over 100,000 K of memory & explorer.exe over 60,000 K, and this is with the system essentially idle, i don't think this is normal. I also uninstalled KIS and reinstalled AVG IS again, will see if it give me explorer.exe errors again, none yet but it did it before, with AVG so it probably will again.

Edited September 7, 2009 by Excalibur

[Argote]

I seem to have explorer.exe crash on me sometimes too. Win7 x64 Ultimate

[Kool Box]

There will be at least 1-2 windows updates related to updating explorer.exe. So I guess Oct 22 onwards it should get fixed (we hope) ;)

[Dazeon]

I seem to have explorer.exe crash on me sometimes too. Win7 x64 Ultimate

Hey,

Check out my post over at Windows 7 Forums, seems to be quite a common problem.

Explorer crash in Windows 7 Ultimate x64 RTM

Total nightmare issue!

Hopefully with more exposure we can get to the bottom of it.

[ajua]

It could be KIS 2010 but the right-click explorer crash started to happen few days after I did a clean installed.

Maybe related to another program with context menu extension as well.

However, the issue here happens few time a day even when I right-click a lot and certainly I can live with it until Kaspersky, Microsoft or the culprit applications updates.

[Swoosh]

There's something strange about Dazeon's link. First, no address

appears when you hover over it. And the source looks weird, too:

<a href="http://www.<< spam >>/general-discussion/22061-windows-explorer-crashing-right-click-under-x64-rtm.html" target="_blank">

I mean, what on earth is that? :)

[Dazeon]

My bad.

I'll try again... :unsure:

<a href="http://www.<< spam >>/general-discussion/22061-windows-explorer-crashing-right-click-under-x64-rtm.html" target="_blank">Windows 7 Forums post</a>

Hope that one works.

Sorry about that.

What the h*ll?

It won't let me link to << spam >>?

Keeps replacing it with < < spam >> or something.

Have Neowin flagged s-e-v-e-n-f-o-r-u-m-s-.-c-o-m as spam?

It won't let me link to it or write it???

[Excalibur]

i was able to get to the link, seems like this is a pretty common issue, i figure it has to be something to do with a driver or program thats incompatible to some extent with Windows 7 64bit. I might would try fresh installing but that really isn't an option for me at this point.

Edited September 8, 2009 by Excalibur

[Dazeon]

i was able to get to the link, seems like this is a pretty common issue, i figure it has to be something to do with a driver or program thats incompatible to some extent with Windows 7 64bit. I might would try fresh installing but that really isn't an option for me at this point.

Glad you managed to get to my link, I'm aiming for as much exposure for this issue as possible.

It's driving me utterly insane now, I really want it fixed.

I am pretty sure that it is not KIS as I have never installed nor used that product.

I initially thought it was a Creative driver, for my X-Fi Xtreme Audio, but I have since scrapped that card.

Next up was Microsoft Security Essentials, but I think I can rule that out now too.

I have disabled EVERYTHING bar the official Microsoft entries using ShellExView, even going as far as removing any application that added to the context menu. I have also tried running a registry clean using CCleaner and ran several scans with MSE (since removed), Spybot - Search & Destory (since removed), Malwarebytes' AntiMalware and avast! Home Edition, all completely clean.

Also sfc/scannow reported nothing unusual or modified.

I really am at a loss now.

All the problem reports point to 'msvcrt.dll' or ntdll.dll', are people finding that these are the culprits also?

I really do hope we can get to the bottom of this.

[ajua]

I just came across this post after searching for this error:

http://forums.mozillazine.org/viewtopic.ph...9&t=1350255

People are getting explorer.exe crashes on Vista/7 x64 randomly when Firefox 3.5 (x86) is installed. A few reported that even when Firefox is not running they experienced them.

Perhaps its not KIS as I thought earlier. And as long as I can remember, I have those crashes with FF being open.

Will keep an eye open to see if this happens to me without FF running.

If any of you are having lots of crashes (mines a just a few a day at the most) try unisntalling FF to rule it out or revert back to 3.0.x and see if the crashes still happen.

[master2k27]

I get it every so often too. Win 7 64 RTM

[MagicAndre1981]

install the Debugging Tools for Windows, pen the command prompt and go to the folder where you installed them.

When Explorer crashes again run the following command:

cscript adplus.vbs -crash -pn explorer.exe -quiet -o c:\adplus

Now I'll find a dmp file in C:\adplus. Zip this file and upload it, so that the Explorer Guy Brandon Live can take a look at it.

[stoneyyay]

see i'm having the SAME issues and am running the x86 version of win 7 rtm ultimate lol its only started a couple weeks ago it was wierd though it ONLY did it when there was a woman present at my house, but it does it on its own accord now and its driving me NUTS i have ALOT of apps installed and uninstalled EVERY app before the problem started, i think that it MAY be from ff but a reg script from an older version or something along those linescould even be winrar winamp msn or utorrent, al of which work fine even when explorer crashes and burns, who knows ms will probly release a hotfix for it in their next update my issues started on i think it was the 29thof aug if thats usefull at all, im not willing to reinstall i only have 1 tb partition and its pretty much full of data my other tb is currently full as well im running an asus m2n-e deluxe 570-i chipset( i think) athlon x2 64 5200+ unlocked (and ocd to 3.2) 5 gb ddr2 800 mhz ram, ati radeon hd 3650 512 ddr2 vid card(in the market for a new nvid card) powered by a 600 watt psu, dont think that has any relavence to whats going on though