open explorer, starts new process, close it, process remains active

[ddd990]

Hi,

I've got a quicklaunch shortcut to:

%windir%\explorer.exe shell:::{323CA680-C24D-4099-B94D-446DD2D7249E}

That takes me straight to my explorer favourites. What I notice is that when I launch that, I get a new explorer.exe thread appear in the task manager. When I close it though, that thread remains active. It's not doing anything, but it's still there. Anyone know why it wouldn't terminate? Is it to do with how I'm launching it (using the shell parameter) ?

Here are some tests I did, in each case I started out with only my main explorer instance (the one that holds the systray, quicklaunch etc).

1. Click my shortcut from quicklaunch shown above.
2. Click the red "X" to close it.
3. Repeat steps 1 & 2 four more times.

Result:

After closing all those explorers, so I was back to having only my main explorer, I did this sequence:

1. Click Start->Run-> and typed explorer and enter.
2. Click the red "X" to close it.
3. Repeat steps 1 & 2 four more times.

Result:

Also, after a while that one single extra explorer disappeared. I guess it stuck around a minute or so, maybe in case I decided to start explorer again, it would save me a few milliseconds by not having to re-launch fully.

The shortcut ones do also disappear eventually sometimes, but other times they don't.

It's not at all unusual for me to start task manager, despite having no explorer windows open and not having had any open for quite a while, to see 10+ explorer processes sat there.

 

[MilesAhead]

Don't use the shell command. Just use
%windir%\explorer.exe :{323CA680-C24D-4099-B94D-446DD2D7249E}

 

[ddd990]

Don't use the shell command. Just use
%windir%\explorer.exe :{323CA680-C24D-4099-B94D-446DD2D7249E}

Thanks for the suggestion. I just tried it (with one colon like that). It was the same.

 

[MilesAhead]

It should be 2 colons. The web editor applet must be eating one.

edit: also I forget the new process indicator for Explorer. I'm on a library computer and goig from memory.
I think after explorer.exe you leave a space and put a comma and 'e' something like
explorer.exe ,e MyFolder

to open Myfolder as a seperate process. But I may be wrong.

 

[Brink]

Hello ddd,

Yeah, either method of that command does the same, so it really doesn't matter which one you use.

Normally when you close an explorer window, it may take a few moments or so for it's process to actually close in Task Manager, but they should automatically do so. You'll always have one explorer process running though since it's used by Windows.

 

[ddd990]

Hello ddd,

Yeah, either method of that command does the same, so it really doesn't matter which one you use.

Normally when you close an explorer window, it may take a few moments or so for it's process to actually close in Task Manager, but they should automatically do so. You'll always have one explorer process running though since it's used by Windows.

Yeah, that's what I'm seeing. It either makes no difference, or the colons get mixed up enough that it fails to even find the directory.

It seems to be a very weird directory. I couldn't find it anywhere. The Favorites that appears in explorer at the same hierarchical level as Dekstop is certainly not the same as the directory c:\users\username\Favorites (that's something completely different).

Next time I see ten (or so) explorers in my task manager and no apparent open explorers, I'm going to wait to see if they disappear (all but one of them of course).

 

[MilesAhead]

I don't have the bookmark/favorite for it at hand. But someplace there's a list of System Folders and the colon Guid strings to make them open in Explorer. I tried to find it yesterday. Trouble is these library computers won't let me load Firefox off a USB so I can look at the bookmark. Securty conscious to the point that I can't even right click the mouse. A little extreme.

I found a different one:
Known Folder GUIDs for File Dialog Custom Places

you have to add the double colon and curly braces yourself
example Computer (without the quotes) "::{0AC0837C-BBF8-452A-850D-79D08E667CA7}"

 

[Brink]

I don't have the bookmark/favorite for it at hand. But someplace there's a list of System Folders and the colon Guid strings to make them open in Explorer. I tried to find it yesterday. Trouble is these library computers won't let me load Firefox off a USB so I can look at the bookmark. Securty conscious to the point that I can't even right click the mouse. A little extreme.

I found a different one:
Known Folder GUIDs for File Dialog Custom Places

you have to add the double colon and curly braces yourself
example Computer (without the quotes) "::{0AC0837C-BBF8-452A-850D-79D08E667CA7}"

OR

http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/110919-clsid-key-list-windows-7-a.html