Windows 7: Multiple explorer processes.

There are times when I open the task manager and I see six or eight, sometimes twelve or more instances of explorer.exe running and eating up resources. This can be when I have an explorer window open, or even if I'm just sitting at an empty desktop or doing nothing at all. There's always a "master" one that is eating up anywhere from 10 to 50MB of RAM or more (depending on if I have an explorer window open, whether or not I'm moving files around, etc.), then there are as many as a dozen or more little ones eating up anywhere from 1.5MB to 10MB or more (depending on I don't know what...)

Why is explorer launching multiple instances? Or, why are explorer processes not being killed off the way they should? How can I get this under control?

Have you changed any Explorer shortcuts to open in certain places besides the default location?

I'm not sure what you're asking.

I have locations bookmarked in the sidebar, and they show up in the right-click menu to the explorer launcher that's pinned to my taskbar...

Other than that, no.

ehhh something has caused windows to launch explorer.exe to many times, it's likely got to do with something you added or was changed incidentally. you can close exploere and relaunch it with a run command but you really need to narrow down what is causing this. i'd start looking at any shell extensions you may have added.

It's been a little while since I've messed with this, but I'm still having issues with multiple explorer.exe processes showing up and not going away.

Using Process Explorer, I've been able to determine that it is wininit.exe>services.exe>svchost.exe that is launching all the explorer processes. The command given in the properties window for each and every instance is
I tried Googling that command, but all Google gives me is 20 pages of Chinese results which, when translated, don't tell me squat.

Basically, every time I open an explorer window of my own, it never really goes away even after I close it. It seems to stop spawning at about 7 or 10 processes or so, but with each one eating up memory, it does slow me down after while.

As valtonray suggested, I'm going over my shell extensions. I'm using ShellExView, but I'm a little unclear as to how to narrow down such a list of possibilities.

I have standard stuff installed - Adobe Reader, 7Zip, Unlocker (which I wouldn't need if these explorer processes would die on their own), PowerISO, and that's pretty much it - the rest in the list is system stuff.

Can someone point me in any kind of direction here?

I would start with the following,,,

stop using ShellExView for a while altogether and see if the problem continues.

I would also run a couple different online virus scans such as NOD32 and OneCare Safety Scan
Just to be sure you are not infected.

What antivirus are you using,, if it is AVG,, kill that garbage and install MSE.

I just downloaded and ran ShellExView yesterday. This has been going on for a while, so I doubt that has anything to do with it. I just wanted to check and make sure that the few I thought I had were the only ones I really had.

As for AV, I'm using Comodo.

hi...
i had the same probs...
The solution to this prob is very simple...

Just create shortcut of ur computer icon on desktop by right clicking it...
now use this shortcut to open explorer each time you need...
it will create only one instance for all explorer open by it

If u find ur issue unresolved you can mail me at shahrukh1911@gmail.com

I too have had a similar issue.

First of all, let me clear that it has nothing to do with malware. Now, are you using programs like Internet Download Manager, UTorrent, BitTorrent etc?

Basically, the ones with commandline :

C:\Windows\explorer.exe /factory,{75dff2b7-6936-4c06-a8bb-676a7b00b24b} -Embedding

are shell containing folders. I mean that they appears when you right click any file/folder and select 'Open file/folder location' from explorer's or above mentioned programs's context menu.

Disable this