Windows 7: Right click causes explorer crash fix

A lot of people I have discovered within the last few days have had a problem with right clicking in explorer, causing it to crash. This occurs of Vista, and 7 (7100 atleast) when you install an app, and it installs a context menu shortcut or whatever.

The simple way to get rid of the crashing is by going to "HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\*\shellex\ ContextMenuHandlers" in regedit.exe, backing up the whole ConxtentMenuHandlers folder, and then start deleting all of them one by one (you can start with the ones you've been meaning to get rid of anyway ) and continuously testing the right click. Be careful not to click on an actual folder when opening of explorer after the crash because for me that seemed to solve the problem temporarily. Instead just open up your username folder and right click on a file until it stops. Of course import the Context folder after you find it, test explorer once again by right clicking to make sure you found the problem, and delete the file that caused the problem.

Hopefully this helps someone.

I had the same issue with my windows 7. Everything I right clicked would crash the explorer.exe.

Thanks for this thread, it helped me solve my problem.

my issue was fixed by erasing this registry entry from the folder you said.

[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\*\shellex\ContextMenuHandlers\BriefcaseMenu]
@="{85BBD920-42A0-1069-A2E4-08002B30309D}"

To add to this post If you would prefer a GUI method to utilize this fix
Autoruns part of the Sysinternals suite from Microsoft is available. The additional advantage of the autoruns application is that it allows you to disable the context handlers one at a time without the need to remove them.


Autoruns for Windows

i was having this problem when Right-clicking a file on the Desktop and selecting "Scan with Kaspersky" .. my explorer would crash..

your tutorial did the trick ..
took me a few times of trial and error ..
Windows 7 had a few unnecessary, blank, registry keys ..
there were a few doubles
now my WinZip actually shows up in explorer context menu and works .. before i had to launch WinZip and extract or archive within WinZip :)

long story short..
i deleted everything not needed..
and now no more "Explorer has crashed" error..

Also would like to mention that this problem is also persistent for people with Intel Chipsets which i have.. that would cause "Explorer has Crashed" to appear randomly..

to fix that . . download the new Intel Chipset Drivers just released specifically for Windows 7 ..

http://downloadcenter.intel.com/Sear...Chipset+Family

Intel® Graphics Media Accelerator Driver for Windows 7 x86 x64 v15.15.4.64.1872


Hope my experience with this issue will help others ...

P.S.
- a big thanks to "CupofDice" for this wonderful post !!!



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EDIT:
I just did a clean install as the problem came back and even more frequently..
Now i have no problems !!!

I have realized it's not Windows that is causing these errors ...

In my case.. i had "Windows 7 Manager" and did a Registry Scan .. it found over 600 so-called "errors" .. and i went ahead and had "Windows 7 Manager" "fix" them .. LoL

Well that's when i started to have these "explorer has crashed" issues..

I just did a clean install last night..
and did tests after tests by right-clicking everything and everywhere possible..

Everything working perfect for me now. .. :)

I had to disable every shred of context menu handlers using regedit, autoruns, and shellexview. I can only hope that this will help. Everything else didn't.

!!!UPDATE!!!

Nothing has changed. Even after disabling everything in the context menu, every couple of days, it goes back to crashing. Restarting takes care of the problem temporarily. I can't wait for the actual version of 7 to come out. Hopefully, these problems will be addressed.

Excellent!! Once I deleted the entries with empty values... no more crashes!! Thanks!

For me it was Kaspersky 2010 (folder and file level). I would get crashes if I right clicked/properties on a folder/folder twice, but now it's solved

* Thanks Barman58, that tool was perfect!

Cheers,
Dave

done every thing posted still crashes reinstalled no updates no crash!!!! right clicked everything then updated windows 7 crashes with right click even to right click in my computer on cd to explore crashes i even did a support with Microsoft they closed the ticket on me as well???



12/7/2009 11:13 PM Windows Error Reporting

Fault bucket 678249203, type 5
Event Name: AppHangB1
Response: Not available
Cab Id: 0

Problem signature:
P1: explorer.exe

Thanks! I only deleted one context menu and everything is working fine now!

Problem signature:
Problem Event Name: APPCRASHApplication
Name: explorer.exe
Application Version: 6.1.7600.16385
Application Timestamp: 4a5bc60d
Fault Module Name: KERNELBASE.dll
Fault Module Version: 6.1.7600.16385
Fault Module Timestamp: 4a5bdaae
Exception Code: 0eedfade
Exception Offset: 00009617OS
Version: 6.1.7600.2.0.0.256.1
Locale ID: 1033Additional Information 1: 1d32
Additional Information 2: 1d32409995138d855a2b9bb446ccc159
Additional Information 3: bd92
Additional Information 4: bd92becdde1f92cda004092bfde37325



now.. there are a lot of shellex...
it will take me ages to delete and check them..!

Could my error report help you to find the solution for this?
Sorry for the inconvenience