Windows Explorer stopped working

phenson said:

Every time I right click a blank area of my desktop to make a new folder, a window pops up that says:

Windows Explorer Has Stopped Working

under that it gives 2 options:

"Check online for a solution and restart the program"
&
"Restart the program"

Selecting either option does nothing---I still get the error message when I right click .

P.S. This is in Windows 7 Home Premium

There should be information on why in event viewer (type eventvwr in search). Go to windows logs>applications tab. You need to look for critical errors (they have red in the left hand column) that say things like app hang, app crash.

When you find them (there is going to be a lot of data) use the built in snipping tool to make a screen shot. Upload it to us using the attachment icon (shaped like a paper clip) on the reply form.

See Pics

Ken

Thanks for replying Zigzag. I am at work at the moment so I will not be able to look at event viewer until I get home at 7PM EST. I will post back what I find either tomorrow or Monday as I work again tomorrow 7 to 7 but am off Monday and Tuesday and will then have time to look at things.

Thanks again,
Paul

Found a program called ShellEx and installed and ran it. It found a couple suspitious programs running which I then disabled. Now I can right click the desktop with no errors.

Paul

I was suddenly receiving the message in the title on each bootup. Suspiciously, just after having installed Windows "Hotfix" update though, sadly, uninstalling that particular update did nothing to solve the problem. It seemed likely to be issues with some startup program but prior to going through that drill one-by-one, I did a full scan and optimization with a program I have long used called "Ashampoo". Among other things this program optimizes the registry and I'm pretty sure that was the module that solved the problem. Ashampoo is not free, but my guess is that another poster's suggestion to use the ShellEx software would be a good first try for anyone not currently using Ashampoo (or another registry optimizer). Information in many forums lately indicates that registry optimizers are no longer needed these days what with all of Windows 7 new grooviness (and it is truthfully mostly groovy), but I have my doubts.

Cheers