Right Click Folder Crash With Only Folders With 1 Letter Names

Please make a test folder with two letters in the same area where you are seeing this crash happen.
Right click on that test folder & then post a screenshot of the context menu:
Screenshots and Files - Upload and Post in Seven Forums

You can also investigate the crash using Process Monitor - see this post:
Missing start menu icons
...only you will not want to deselect the buttons in the upper right part of screenshot one.

If you opt to use Process Monitor:
...then start it gathering data and do what you do to crash Explorer
...after Explorer crashes, you can stop Process Monitor from gathering data.
Read thru the info near the end of the gathered data and see if anything jumps out at you.


This next bit is another way to use Process Monitor during a crash of Explorer, without losing your desktop.
Open Task Manager > Processes tab
From the Menu bar - select View > Select Columns...
Place a check by PID (Process Identifier)

Hopefully, you only have one process running named explorer.exe
Take note of the PID for that instance of Explorer.

Now start a new instance of Explorer*
(This new instance will be the one that we will try and crash.)

*From Task Manager's Menu bar - select File > New Task (Run...)
Once the Create New Task window pops up, type in
explorer /n

That should open an instance of Explorer.
Take note of the PID of this new instance.
Use that PID as the filter in Process Monitor.
Using the new instance of Explorer, right click on one of the folders that normally crashes Explorer while gathering info via Process Monitor.

laidbacktokyo,
Sorry for the late reply.

Did you solve this issue already or do you still need help? If you solved it, could you share the solution.

Did you try Process Monitor?

You might try uninstalling the apps that are creating the additions to your context menu. Maybe that will help you find the offending app. Unfortunately, it might be a combination of apps - in which case, it might be hard to ferret out a solution.

UsernameIssues said:

laidbacktokyo,
Sorry for the late reply.

Did you solve this issue already or do you still need help? If you solved it, could you share the solution.

Did you try Process Monitor?

You might try uninstalling the apps that are creating the additions to your context menu. Maybe that will help you find the offending app. Unfortunately, it might be a combination of apps - in which case, it might be hard to ferret out a solution.

Howdy UsernameIssues,

Thanks 4 ur kind attention to this my post.

No this issue on 1 of 3 of my Win7 SP1 PCs around is yet unsolved.

On the other hand I consider this issue as not too much disturbing one when I commonly don't name my own folders by 1 character, and maybe there are not too many Win7 system folders named by 1 letter by default.

Actually this odd issue was found while my checking of another printer driver issue and ferreting around C:\Windows\System32\spool\drivers\x64\3. So this folder named 3 is that rear case...

Anyhow, of course I've tried Process Monitor as well as other commonly handy utilities as mentioned in my initial post but all these approaches didn't give me clear culprit when there is too much info and too many would-be candidates. And I don't dream to reinstall maybe many of maybe some 150 apps intstalled.

So it's exactly as you've noted at the end of your message....


Any good guess to test based on pic of my right click popup menu?

Appreciate.:)

Nope - no guesses. I don't use any of the apps that you show.

A bit less painful than uninstalling apps would be these steps:
Troubleshoot Application Conflicts by Performing a Clean Startup

UsernameIssues said:

Nope - no guesses. I don't use any of the apps that you show.

A bit less painful than uninstalling apps would be these steps:
Troubleshoot Application Conflicts by Performing a Clean Startup

thanx 4 a nice idea. z most simple way is surely best here.
i'll duly test this option & prompt u results.

thankful :)

howdy UsernameIssues,

well sorry 4 some delay.

this is just 2 report that I was lucky 2 locate z culprit of this odd issue w/o any special action. incidentally as usual.

this is a shell extension of WinMount x64 app WinMount - Compress & Mount RAR ZIP CD DVD HDD images. it's a few green icons on my pic of right-click menu above. file in charge is WinMTExt.dll.

it's a pity when I consider this app as nice & convenient, so I've just turned off its integration into win7 shell.


thank you.

c ya then,

Thanks for posting back with your findings. You might want to contact the author of the software and point them to this thread.

laidbacktokyo, thank you so much for finding the culprit, I also had this problem for a while and was clueless what to do. Now I'm happy to know the solution.