Explorer.exe hangs on shutdown

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grizzly

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One of the computers in the office where I work hangs when the user shuts down in the evening. The error dialog says there are two processes still running, and the title bar of the dialog says "explorer.exe error". The message in the dialog says something like "The instruction at "0xXXXXXXXX" referenced memory at "0xXXXXXXXX", The memory could not be "written. Click OK to close." There is an OK button and when you click it, the computers finishes it's shutdown with no further hang up. Windows explorer is the stuck process shown. I've done a little research on it and some of the suggestions are to clear the temporary internet files, which I did, but that didn't help and I wonder if they were thinking IE and not the Windows explorer which is different. Any Ideas ?
 

My Computer My Computer

At a glance

windows 7Dual Xeon
Computer Manufacturer/Model Number
Dell T7400
OS
windows 7
CPU
Dual Xeon

My Computer My Computer

At a glance

Windows 10, Home Clean InstallIntel Core2 processsor Q8200(2.33Ghz 1333FSB)...6 gbATI Radeon 256MB HD3650
Computer type
PC/Desktop
Computer Manufacturer/Model Number
Dell XPS 420
OS
Windows 10, Home Clean Install
CPU
Intel Core2 processsor Q8200(2.33Ghz 1333FSB) Quad Core Tech
Motherboard
Dell
Memory
6 gb
Graphics Card(s)
ATI Radeon 256MB HD3650
Sound Card
Intergrated 7.1 Channel Audio
Monitor(s) Displays
Dell SP2009W 20"
Hard Drives
640 GB Serial ATA Hard drive
Cooling
Fan
Keyboard
Dell USB Keyboard
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Dell Premium Optical USB
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DSL 2.85
So it's a work computer, do you have administrative access for it?

If you do and just want to ignore the reason for the crashes you can add the 'autoendtasks' entry to the registry with a value of 1 (Google it for specifics.) It will automatically close any crashed/hung apps without needing your input to 'OK it', the computer will shut down on its own (at a quicker rate to.)

grizzly said:
One of the computers in the office where I work hangs when the user shuts down in the evening. The error dialog says there are two processes still running, and the title bar of the dialog says "explorer.exe error". The message in the dialog says something like "The instruction at "0xXXXXXXXX" referenced memory at "0xXXXXXXXX", The memory could not be "written. Click OK to close." There is an OK button and when you click it, the computers finishes it's shutdown with no further hang up. Windows explorer is the stuck process shown. I've done a little research on it and some of the suggestions are to clear the temporary internet files, which I did, but that didn't help and I wonder if they were thinking IE and not the Windows explorer which is different. Any Ideas ?
Click to expand...
 

My Computer My Computer

At a glance

Windows 7 Professional 64 Bit SP1INTEL DUAL CORE 2.1Ghz4GB DDR3INTEL
Computer Manufacturer/Model Number
HP DV6 1330sa
OS
Windows 7 Professional 64 Bit SP1
CPU
INTEL DUAL CORE 2.1Ghz
Motherboard
N/A
Memory
4GB DDR3
Graphics Card(s)
INTEL
Sound Card
LAPTOP
Monitor(s) Displays
2
Screen Resolution
3200x1080
Hard Drives
250GB
PSU
LAPTOP
Case
LAPTOP
Cooling
LAPTOP
Keyboard
SOLID YEAR 260U
Mouse
USB
Internet Speed
20 MB/S
Thanks richc46 and Rei Tumult for both replies. The user of this machine is in a very busy office and I would prefer not to tie it up trouble shooting too long, so the AutoEndTask registry change would probably be a better solution on this machine. Ill give that a try in the morning and post my results.
UPDATE: I made the registry change on it this morning. The string value AutoEndTasks didn't exist so I created it under HKEY_USERS for everyone using that machine and set the value to 1.
I rebooted and logged on as the user with the problem and it shutdown smoothly but I'll be interested to see how it shuts down this evening after using it all day.
 
Last edited:

My Computer My Computer

At a glance

windows 7Dual Xeon
Computer Manufacturer/Model Number
Dell T7400
OS
windows 7
CPU
Dual Xeon
Well, the computer in question does shut down, but the user still gets a dialog of some kind. The dialog appears and then closes itself after 2 or 3 seconds and the computer will finish shutting down without user intervention. Having that dialog appear is not what I would call a clean shutdown though. It looks like it's referencing a memory address that it can't read, something like a "The instruction at "0xXXXXXXXX" referenced memory at "0xXXXXXXXX", The memory could not be "written". message. with an OK button on it. It doesn't really stay up long enough to read it all before closing itself. Not very clean considering it's a nice new machine.

Is there any easy way to suppress this error message on shutdown ?
 

My Computer My Computer

At a glance

windows 7Dual Xeon
Computer Manufacturer/Model Number
Dell T7400
OS
windows 7
CPU
Dual Xeon
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