Windows 7 Explorer Continuously Crashing

Hi,
I've been having the apparently quite common explorer crashing problem. Now I've googled and tried solutions the entire day, also following Capt.Jack's guide found on this very forum, but to no avail.

Here's what's going on. I'm running Windows 7 home premium (SP1) on a brand new Asus U36SD. I did my usual thing of uninstalling some useless bundled software & ad-ware like games etc. and then just running windows update on the system. I noticed the problems a while after installing both Firefox and VLC, as I hadn't really had to use explorer prior to that.

So first I was afraid it was a virus, but Kaspersky's free to use virus scanner cleared that fear. The next thing I tried was ShellExView, and used it to turn off all the non-MS context menu handlers. It didn't help at all. So I tried to use the registry fix by Andre Ziegler, and it went into the registry all right, but I don't get any dumps. So that's not working out.

System restore doesn't want to function, as it claims I have anti-virus software installed, which I don't, as I've removed the free Kaspersky's software. The computer is without an optical drive, so reinstalling the system would be quite a pain, and seeing as I've not really done anything significant to it yet (I hope), I don't see how it would really help me.

Any tips on how to advance from here? Or how to get the dumps to actually show up? I'm really in a bind, since the crashing is constant and it's basically rendering the laptop useless.

Much thanks in advance!

Welcome Humpake,

Excellent, detailed first post.
Congrats too on your problem solving efforts thus far.

* Did your system come with a preinstalled AV program?
If so, how did you remove it?

* Did you use the appropriate uninstall tool from Kaspersky to remove their program?

* What AV is now protecting your system?

* To ensure minidumps are enabled:

> Go to Start, in the Search Box type: sysdm.cpl Press Enter.
> Under the Advanced tab, click on the Startup and Recovery - Settings... button.
> Ensure that Automatically restart is unchecked.
> Under the Write Debugging Information header select Small memory dump (256 kb) in the drop down box (the 256kb varies).
> Ensure that the Small Dump Directory is listed as %systemroot%\Minidump.
> OK.
> Reboot if changes have been made.

JMH said:

Welcome Humpake,

Excellent, detailed first post.
Congrats too on your problem solving efforts thus far.

Thanks for the warm welcome! I come form a linux & BSD background, so I function better around those OSes. These newer Windows breeds are well away from my comfort zone :).

JMH said:

* Did your system come with a preinstalled AV program?
If so, how did you remove it?

It came with a "you can buy me" installed, but luckily it had the option of uninstalling it, so I used the uninstaller provided by the software manufacturer.

JMH said:

* Did you use the appropriate uninstall tool from Kaspersky to remove their program?

* What AV is now protecting your system?

Yeah, I removed the Kaspersky AV via their own method. Right now the computer is protected by Windows, but it's not connected to the internet. I'm browsing via my other computer.

JMH said:

* To ensure minidumps are enabled:

> Go to Start, in the Search Box type: sysdm.cpl Press Enter.
> Under the Advanced tab, click on the Startup and Recovery - Settings... button.
> Ensure that Automatically restart is unchecked.
> Under the Write Debugging Information header select Small memory dump (256 kb) in the drop down box (the 256kb varies).
> Ensure that the Small Dump Directory is listed as %systemroot%\Minidump.
> OK.
> Reboot if changes have been made.

Cool, I'll try this right away tomorrow morning. Right now, it's about 1am local time, and it's time to sleep. I really appreciate the guide on activating minidumps!

Also apparently Asus built in a hidden partition into this specific type of laptop to ensure recovery to the factory state without disks, so if all else fails, I'll just recover, and see if that helps.

Much thanks, and good night!

Download shellexview and run it. Start disabling context menu items until you find the culprit.

roban said:

Download shellexview and run it. Start disabling context menu items until you find the culprit.

Thanks for the tip, but like I mentioned in my original post, I tried using ShellExView and it didn't help.

I decided not to sleep after all and troubleshoot this problem further. I tried to get the minidumps working via the system panel, but I still don't get dumps when explorer crashes. It didn't even stop the automatic restart. I then reinstalled the whole system from scratch, and alas, the problem emerged once again.

Does anyone have any tips on how to get surefire crashlogs from explorer so I could possibly get rid of this problem?

Thanks for all the help so far!

edit: I tried the controlpanel trick in conjunction with the .reg file which was supposed to help.

* Re - no DMP files produced.
You should be able to do that in Safe Mode.

Restart your computer and hit F8 immediately.
By doing that you should get an option for safe mode and either use the collector program as described in the link above or simply go to
C:\window\minidump and upload all the files.


* BTW - Is this new computer under Warranty?

JMH said:

* Re - no DMP files produced.
You should be able to do that in Safe Mode.

Restart your computer and hit F8 immediately.
By doing that you should get an option for safe mode and either use the collector program as described in the link above or simply go to
C:\window\minidump and upload all the files.


* BTW - Is this new computer under Warranty?

Safemode experiences the exact same explorer crashes, but no DMP files are produced. While windows explorer is crashing it declares that it's collecting some sort of data, but once it restarts I can't find a dmp file about it anywhere. Neither the registry trick or control panel one seem to work. This is driving me absolutely nuts :/

Yes the computer is under warranty, so I can just easily return it and so forth, but that would leave me without a windows laptop for a while, since they'd have to verify the problem, and possibly fix it.

A new computer should not be presenting with the problem{s} you have listed.
I know what I would do if it were me...

Please keep us informed on what you decide & the ultimate outcome.:)

JMH said:

A new computer should not be presenting with the problem{s} you have listed.
I know what I would do if it were me...

Please keep us informed on what you decide & the ultimate outcome.:)

The though has crossed my mind quite a few times during this, and I guess I have no other option. I'm visiting the shop today for other reasons, so I guess I'll just take this machine along with me.

Thanks for all the help, and I'll keep you guys informed :).

Good luck...:)
Jan.