Windows Explorer has stopped working - one solution

I was going to post a message asking for help with a Windows Explorer has stopped working problem.. but I found the solution first and I thought others might find it useful.

The Symptom: The "Windows Explorer has stopped working" message appears randomly. After some testing I found that opening a particular drive on my system would trigger the error after about 30 seconds.

Then I noticed in task manager that explorer.exe was using 25-50% CPU and my RAM usage started increasing. When it got to 75% the error message appeared.

The cause turned out to be a corrupt file entry.

I had to go to a CMD prompt. From there changing to the problem drive did not trigger the error. I copied the files to another drive then formatted the drive.

Then from a CMD prompt, and with an explorer window open for the problem drive I copied files back one at a time until the problem occured.

I couldn't delete the file from the problem drive, so once I identified the file I formatated the drive, deleted the bad file from the location I had copied it to and copied all other files back to the formatted drive.

Dont know if there is an easier way, was the only way I could fix it.. tried it in safe mode but the errors didn't occur in safe mode so there was lots of reboots.

If you have this error, the cause may be a corrupt file.

I am on WIndows 7 ultimate x64 with all latest patches installed.

Hope this helps someone....

>.< i encounter such problem. i formatted it 3 months ago. it'll be good if u posted this 3 months ago xD