explorer.exe crashing on clean install of Windows 7 64bit Home Premium

I have many more problems than just explorer.exe, but this is the worst problem I'm experiencing

Text in italics describes problems already solved, included in case the back story may shed some light on the problems, otherwise skip italics if you don't want to be bored
This has been quite a week for me. I recently bought a new 120GB SSD for my system as the 64GB one I had been using was starting to feel very cramped. Instead of cloning my old disk over, I opted for a clean install. From the very beginning, problems began to occur. My installation USB for Windows 7 that has worked for years suddenly was having errors installing. Can't remember the error but the solution was to just get a new ISO to burn to the drive. Got it installed, set up my profile, restarted the computer and got "A disk read error occurred. Press Ctrl + Alt + Delete to restart the computer." For two days, restarting the computer gave me a 45% chance of that error, a 45% chance of "Reboot and select proper boot device," or a 10% chance of actually getting into windows. After checking the disk via CHKDSK and my memory with MEMTEST, both to no avail, I ended up clocking down my memory to 1600MHz and switching what SATA port my hard drive was in on my motherboard. Not sure which one fixed it but both of those errors are fixed now.

Since then I've installed all of my drivers but I'm getting a lot of problems with just basic functioning of programs. Steam, NVIDIA GeForce Experience, and Skype are all notable contenders for deciding just to suddenly stop responding whenever any interaction is done, sometimes fully crashing and sometimes just freezing for a few minutes. I haven't yet posted to any of their forums as this seems to be a common problem between all of my programs. Turning on my computer this morning resulted in a Windows Update error, failing to configure update files. Windows explorer however takes the cake for being the most buggy. I first noticed a problem where on my desktop and in folders, icons are often nonexistent and just replaced with the folded piece of paper placeholder. Another large problem is that sometimes opening either a folder or a hard drive in explorer has the long load with the green load bar on the top of the window. It can take up to 90 seconds just to open a folder on my new SSD. I've checked for fragmenting on my HDD (only 1% fragmented), and have indexed both drives but this problem persists. Copying, pasting, uncompressing, or doing any other file manipulation in explorer sometimes makes explorer.exe completely crash and have to restart. Finally, one last problem that has been happening is that in task manager, ending any process normally has no effect. Ending explorer.exe when it's crashed, or Steam*32.exe when it's crashed, or any other process prompts for confirmation of ending the process, but when I click yes the process doesn't end. I have to just let it take its course and wait for Windows to tell me "this has encountered a problem would you like to close it or wait" and then close it.

My computer was never so unresponsive in the year that I had it with the old SSD, and now it's starting to remind me of working on a computer from a public school. I have absolutely no idea what the problem could be causing all of this, as I have no BSODs as of yet to go off of and sfc didn't find any registry problems. I'm reluctant to try to reinstall Windows again because if this ISO didn't work I don't know why it would work a second time. Sorry for the long post but I just don't know where to start with these problems.

Sounds like a bad ISO image install. You can try to create another ISO using a different source and medium (USB or DVD) and reinstall. Another option is to use the cloning method with the old 64GB SSD; if its still in tact and doesn't have any issues of its own. All you need is free cloning software and applicable SATA-USB cables. It's a lot faster and excludes reinstalling programs/applications and Windows updates that would normally follow a clean install.

Thanks for the reply, do you know where I could get a good ISO in case I have problems cloning? I used a torrent from the steps found on pcsteps.com so I wasn't sure if there may be a better source

I would guess you have a retail Win 7 license?

If so, you can download directly from Microsoft - Microsoft Software Recovery

Well, Digital River offers ISO downloads for retail customers but as far customers that have OEM versions preinstalled you might be able to contact the seller but they may charge and it might packaged with other programs you don't want.

Unless, of course, you know someone that has the retail Windows installation disk and lets you borrow it. If not, the only other way is using torrent and that can be iffy.

Well I'll try cloning then, I use the product key from an old laptop for my desktop so I can't use that ISO service. If the consensus is that this is an ISO problem and not something wrong with windows, I'll mark this as solved. Thanks for the help.

I had some explorer crashes. If you have 18.0.0.194 adobe with the exception of Google Chrome, try uninstalling it and see if that fixes the problem.

Nathan5802 said:

... I use the product key from an old laptop for my desktop ...

This can be one source for your issue. If you can follow Windows Genuine and Activation Issue Posting Instructions and attach here, we can check if that install is legit.

I don't think it's an activation problem, as this is the same code I used on my old drive which worked fine, but here's the output of that program you pointed to:

Code:

Diagnostic Report (1.9.0027.0):
-----------------------------------------
Windows Validation Data-->

Validation Code: 0
Cached Online Validation Code: N/A, hr = 0xc004f012
Windows Product Key: *****-*****-8DFVP-CPBXX-P3T68
Windows Product Key Hash: 7pvqT9Blc48mqx66233jQ9Y8noE=
Windows Product ID: 00359-OEM-9826415-52337
Windows Product ID Type: 8
Windows License Type: COA SLP
Windows OS version: 6.1.7601.2.00010300.1.0.003
ID: {D810931D-8865-49FE-BDD9-3BE96C0AD33D}(1)
Is Admin: Yes
TestCab: 0x0
LegitcheckControl ActiveX: N/A, hr = 0x80070002
Signed By: N/A, hr = 0x80070002
Product Name: Windows 7 Home Premium
Architecture: 0x00000009
Build lab: 7601.win7sp1_rtm.101119-1850
TTS Error: 
Validation Diagnostic: 
Resolution Status: N/A

Vista WgaER Data-->
ThreatID(s): N/A, hr = 0x80070002
Version: N/A, hr = 0x80070002

Windows XP Notifications Data-->
Cached Result: N/A, hr = 0x80070002
File Exists: No
Version: N/A, hr = 0x80070002
WgaTray.exe Signed By: N/A, hr = 0x80070002
WgaLogon.dll Signed By: N/A, hr = 0x80070002

OGA Notifications Data-->
Cached Result: N/A, hr = 0x80070002
Version: N/A, hr = 0x80070002
OGAExec.exe Signed By: N/A, hr = 0x80070002
OGAAddin.dll Signed By: N/A, hr = 0x80070002

OGA Data-->
Office Status: 109 N/A
OGA Version: N/A, 0x80070002
Signed By: N/A, hr = 0x80070002
Office Diagnostics: 025D1FF3-364-80041010_025D1FF3-229-80041010_025D1FF3-230-1_025D1FF3-517-80040154_025D1FF3-237-80040154_025D1FF3-238-2_025D1FF3-244-80070002_025D1FF3-258-3

Browser Data-->
Proxy settings: N/A
User Agent: Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 8.0; Win32)
Default Browser: C:\Program Files (x86)\Google\Chrome\Application\chrome.exe
Download signed ActiveX controls: Prompt
Download unsigned ActiveX controls: Disabled
Run ActiveX controls and plug-ins: Allowed
Initialize and script ActiveX controls not marked as safe: Disabled
Allow scripting of Internet Explorer Webbrowser control: Disabled
Active scripting: Allowed
Script ActiveX controls marked as safe for scripting: Allowed

File Scan Data-->
File Mismatch: C:\Windows\system32\wat\watadminsvc.exe[Hr = 0x80070003]
File Mismatch: C:\Windows\system32\wat\npwatweb.dll[Hr = 0x80070003]
File Mismatch: C:\Windows\system32\wat\watux.exe[Hr = 0x80070003]
File Mismatch: C:\Windows\system32\wat\watweb.dll[Hr = 0x80070003]

Other data-->
Office Details: <GenuineResults><MachineData><UGUID>{D810931D-8865-49FE-BDD9-3BE96C0AD33D}</UGUID><Version>1.9.0027.0</Version><OS>6.1.7601.2.00010300.1.0.003</OS><Architecture>x64</Architecture><PKey>*****-*****-*****-*****-P3T68</PKey><PID>00359-OEM-9826415-52337</PID><PIDType>8</PIDType><SID>S-1-5-21-721055939-1282422016-1168124854</SID><SYSTEM><Manufacturer>Gigabyte Technology Co., Ltd.</Manufacturer><Model>To be filled by O.E.M.</Model></SYSTEM><BIOS><Manufacturer>American Megatrends Inc.</Manufacturer><Version>F6</Version><SMBIOSVersion major="2" minor="7"/><Date>20140528000000.000000+000</Date></BIOS><HWID>9A823A07018400F2</HWID><UserLCID>0409</UserLCID><SystemLCID>0409</SystemLCID><TimeZone>Eastern Standard Time(GMT-05:00)</TimeZone><iJoin>0</iJoin><SBID><stat>3</stat><msppid></msppid><name></name><model></model></SBID><OEM/><GANotification/></MachineData><Software><Office><Result>109</Result><Products/><Applications/></Office></Software></GenuineResults>  

Spsys.log Content: 0x80070002

Licensing Data-->
Software licensing service version: 6.1.7601.17514

Name: Windows(R) 7, HomePremium edition
Description: Windows Operating System - Windows(R) 7, OEM_COA_SLP channel
Activation ID: 5e017a8a-f3f9-4167-b1bd-ba3e236a4d8f
Application ID: 55c92734-d682-4d71-983e-d6ec3f16059f
Extended PID: 00359-00196-264-152337-02-1033-7601.0000-1812015
Installation ID: 016916213711485052237905869290812705944770826154301395
Processor Certificate URL: http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkID=88338
Machine Certificate URL: http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkID=88339
Use License URL: http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkID=88341
Product Key Certificate URL: http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkID=88340
Partial Product Key: P3T68
License Status: Licensed
Remaining Windows rearm count: 3
Trusted time: 7/1/2015 6:58:59 PM

Windows Activation Technologies-->
HrOffline: 0x00000000
HrOnline: N/A
HealthStatus: 0x0000000000000000
Event Time Stamp: N/A
ActiveX: Not Registered - 0x80040154
Admin Service: Not Registered - 0x80040154
HealthStatus Bitmask Output:


HWID Data-->
HWID Hash Current: MAAAAAEAAQABAAIAAAADAAAAAQABAAEAln1KD1J+QKiIB64Hrikgr/QBfw1AjLDe

OEM Activation 1.0 Data-->
N/A

OEM Activation 2.0 Data-->
BIOS valid for OA 2.0: yes, but no SLIC table
Windows marker version: N/A
OEMID and OEMTableID Consistent: N/A
BIOS Information: 
  ACPI Table Name	OEMID Value	OEMTableID Value
  APIC			ALASKA		A M I
  FACP			ALASKA		A M I
  HPET			ALASKA		A M I
  MCFG			ALASKA		A M I
  WDRT			ALASKA		A M I
  FPDT			ALASKA		A M I
  SSDT			AMD		BANTRY  
  SSDT			AMD		BANTRY  
  CRAT			AMD		BANTRY  
  SSDT			AMD		BANTRY  
  SSDT			AMD		BANTRY  
  SSDT			AMD		BANTRY