Windows 7: Windows Explorer crashing on right-click under x64 RTM

I may have been a little quick off the starting block...

It started again today, twice now.
I lost my patience the first time and uninstalled Microsoft Security Essentials, however it has just happened again.

So either something has been left behind (folder has gone and search comes up clean) or it wasn't Microsoft Security Essentials.

This is really driving me insane now!

I have disabled EVERYTHING bar the Microsoft stuff using ShellExtView including the ATI entries and Bluewire General Property Sheet?



I really am at a loss now.

Have reverted back to avast! Home Edition for the foreseeable future.

I am reluctant to perform yet another clean install until I can pinpoint and fix the issue.

Please help!

I had the same problem. Useing ShellExtView I disabled the 2 ATI entries, left everything else enabled and it works fine. It's a great program and everyone should have it. The shaded problem entries are a little hard to see on Win 7.

Hello Dazeon, Looks like the problem is getting severe. As suggested by Tommy, using Shellex, try to find the culprit. I would recommend a clean install to avoid this frustration.

Edit; As an experiment, install ccleaner and run its registry cleaner.

Still happening...

I have disabled EVERYTHING

Dazeon- I've experienced very much the same thing, except I'm on Vista x64. Many other searches lead to similar but not matching cases. I've also gone through ShellExtView front and back, I've disabled DEP after finding that 64 bit processes can't be added to the exceptions list, I've added and removed service packs.. you name it. After trying some "fixes," it behaves for several hours and then it'll go crashing all over again. It's been doing this practically since I bought it. Out of curiosity, do you happen to use the K-Lite Codec Pack? It's right around the time I installed (and subsequently uninstalled) it that I started getting the crashes chronically. It's a stretch of the imagination, but I can't seem to place blame to anything else. I'm unable to see if switching to ganged vs. unganged mode would help since HP's notebooks have very basic BIOS options. Best of luck to you.

I would reinstall Windows then install one driver at a time checking for the problem after each driver install. I wouldn't put up with that for a single day

When I had an IE not responding problem with my control panel not working it was my sound card drivers causing it. I figured out which file it was but then Asus came out with a patch.

It would be pointless to add 64bit processes to the DEP exception list when they are all built being DEP safe. It would be a good idea not to disable DEP anyways.

I use the Win7codecs Vermain.

It's the most annoying problem I have ever had on any machine, and it's extremely weird that it never ever happened until I installed the RTM build.

I am giving it until the weekend then I am going to re-download from Technet and clean install.

I have uninstalled anything that had any kind of right-click integration including WinRAR, CCleaner, Live Mesh, and Spybot - Search & Destroy.

I am still dubious about my X-Fi Xtreme Audio drivers, but nobody else appears to have any problem with them.

As always, any help is greatly appreciated.

I would recommend you to do a clean install at this point of time. Also, instead of WINRAR, use 7-zip and instead of any codecs, use VLC media player.

I know disabling DEP is dangerous, I just tried it as a last resort.
I uninstalled my codecs a long time ago and started using VLC, but that didn't help. It would only help as a work-around until something else triggers the error. (What was described earlier.. having a few hours of good behavior followed by more crashing)

Last night I grew aware of something that might narrow this down. On top of right-clicking the desktop and recycling bin, I noticed that the crashes were more frequent if I had an external memory device plugged in.

This piqued my curiosity, so I went to go check out Device Manager.. and mmc.exe crashed, with ntdll.dll as the culprit. I can open the Microsoft Management Console itself.. but the crash only occurs if I try to choose the Device Manager or Services. Interesting.. Still happened after I ejected the storage device, and it doesn't happen all the time. Safe Mode at least guarantees access to mmc.exe.

A clean install would result in the same thing for my laptop. I have restore cds instead of an actual windows copy. As I install basic software (multimedia player, burning software) it's likely this will trigger again. It's like walking blindly into a field of landmines.
Hope it doesn't carry over when I get my Windows 7 upgrade in October