Green Ribbon of Death is back with venegeance

[Kookoo]

I've checked the older threads for the Green Ribbon of Death solution, and none applied to me.

When using Explorer, the green ribbon (running along the address bar) grows slowly, and when entering the last 5% of full length just crawls to a halt. This happens practically with any folder, even when I go Start->Computer. In most folders it would show the contents of the folder but not allow much to be done with it. With Start->Computer it would not even show the drives. I am out of ideas.

For the time being I have switched back to XP (I am running dual OS on the same machine), but would really like to get back to my Windows 7.

 

[logicearth]

What antivirus or what third-party Windows Explorer extensions have you installed? Most extensions add some right-click menu or other element to Windows Explorer.

 

[Kookoo]

What antivirus or what third-party Windows Explorer extensions have you installed? Most extensions add some right-click menu or other element to Windows Explorer.

Antivirus: Avast!
Third-party extensions: Can't think of one. In terms of installed software the two culprits that I can think of are Daemon Tools and EASEUS Partition Master 4.0 Home Edition but I've had them there since installing Windows 7 and made no changes to them recently...

Tried to see how else I can recreate the issue. Opened a folder with 100 MP3 files, tried playing the files - no issues. Then right-clicked on the Details bar and added "Album" and "Title" columns. The values didn't get displayed, but the green ribbon started running slowly across the address bar and the problem is back. Could it be a problem of sharing ownership of files with Windows XP? But then, I've always ran dual OS and never had this problem before.

Also, right-clicking within the folder didn't reveal any options in the context menu that would not have been there on fresh install, except for the ATi's CCC.

 

[Kookoo]

I've decided to change ownership from Administrators to my user name on C: drive and see if that's gonna do any good...

 

[Qdos]

I can think of are Daemon Tools ...

Mounted any drives? I can just imagine Windows Search or Indexing having difficulties completing if you have done this... just the sort of possibility that would explain the progress bar taking a long time to reach it's zenith...

 

[Kookoo]

No, no drives mounted. And the problem remains with Daemon shut down.
I tried doing a random search, using "TagScann" as a search string, because I knew I had TagScanner installed on C:\. After running for ages, and looking anywhere but C: drive, it finally returned the remarkable result below.Never seen anything like it before.
The funny part is that Windows keeps running as if nothing is wrong, it is just the Explorer which is going off the rails.

Ad then I decided to double click one of these results... At which stage a Windows Security window popped up, letting me know that "These files can't be opened" - "Your Internet security settings prevented one or more files from being opened." Since when do Internet security settings apply to my own local C: drive?! This is just getting hysterical.

 

[Kookoo]

I actually managed to go into these Application Data folders from command prompt, by "cd"ing into these folders. You can't see them in explorer, even with hidden files and folders viewable, but they are definitely there... I'll try to log in from XP and do a scandisk on this drive...

 

[logicearth]

You changed the permissions on those junctions...and caused an infinite loop. Was this before you were having problems or is this new? Like I keep saying, those folders that deny you access, do so for a reason.

 

[Kookoo]

The GRoD was there before I changed permissions, but the search issue was not. So I guess although they look similar, they are not related.
I'll probably have to reinstall, which is a shame, but at this stage I am completely out of ideas.

 

[Frostmourne]

Is your disk defragamented? Have you scheduled a chkdsk check on the hard drive?

 

[Zidane24]

Did you run a registry cleaner on the RC?

 

[Kookoo]

Yip. Ran a checkdisk from XP on the drive which contains the 7 installation. Rebooted into 7 and ran IObit Advanced SystemCare and Smart Defragmenter. The GRoD is still there.

 

[Zidane24]

Yip. Ran a checkdisk from XP on the drive which contains the 7 installation. Rebooted into 7 and ran IObit Advanced SystemCare and Smart Defragmenter. The GRoD is still there.

That may be your issue...there are many topics on the net where a registry cleaner has caused these kind of issues...

Three updates ago Ccleaner caused the same issue (the green bar would never fill)...

I would try a repair install to fix it
http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/3413-repair-install.html

 

[Kookoo]

Sorry, what I meant was that I ran all these as an attempt to get rid of the GRoD issue, which was there first.

 

[Kookoo]

This is the last will and testiment of Kookoo who was driven to insanity by 7RC. Just kidding, but I am pretty close to that state.
I decided to reinstall with the Upgrade option (I had no saved system images or restore points earlier than GRoD appeared). That should be simple, right? Got my trusty 7RC DVD, in it goes, yada-yada... Compatibility testing... hold on. My IDE controller is not compatible with Windows 7? Right...
Actually, it didn't surprise me. I was starting to feel like that joke about the bloke who comes to see a doctor and says "Doc, wherever I poke myself it hurts like hell. My arms, my legs, my gut, my head, they all hurt when I poke there." So the doctor gives him a through exam and says "There is nothing wrong with your arms, legs, gut, or head, BUT YOUR FINGER IS BROKEN!"
In my case, any partition I poked wouldn't work, so the issue must be the finger - i.e. the IDE controller. Now, I haven't touched my IDE controller and have no idea what happened there, but never mind, reinstall of 7 should sort it out, right? Only my installation of 7 got stuck at the 92% mark of the "Gathering program and files" stage, and stayed there for an hour, at which stage I exited. And guess what - it is still trying to roll back the changes, and I sure hope it manages to do so.
So here I am, sitting at my wife's laptop, posting this, and I must say, over the last 2 days I went from slightly worried to really worried to majorly pissed off with Windows 7.

 

[Kookoo]

Apparently the IDE controller was part of DaemonTools. Uninstalled Daemon, but didn't resolve the GRoD issue. But then I rebooted and made an interesting discovery - the issue was gone for just about a minute, but then was back again. So this might mean that there is a process which kicks in about a minute after login, which causes this issue. Any ideas, anyone?

 

[logicearth]

Something you are installing is causing you these issues, but since it was all installed in one big gob it will be hard to pin-point without uninstalling one by one...I would start with the antivirus if there is any then move on from there, testing each one after uninstallation. Might even reboot between each just to be sure.

 

[Kookoo]

Not sure. I've just successfully reinstalled RC and the issue is gone. Phew.
However, since I haven't uninstalled anything from my previous installation (and I didn't do a clean install this time), I'd say that it was not a third-party software issue, but rather the OS. It could have been that I played around with the libraries in WMP12 at some stage (setting new ones, changing location of default ones), but then again - I never did anything that I was clearly not supposed to do.
So I guess case closed on this one, and we'll never know what caused it.
Thanks all for your help!

 

[Qdos]

A bad workman always blames his tools...

 

[Adrian]

Explorer

I see that you have 2 or 3 HDD's, the issue may stem from your secondary drives.
C:\ drive is always active and indexed, the other 2 drives go into standby mode.
If you use access either of the 2 they have to come back online and it causes Windows 7 to wake them up and you'll see the explorer bar in green move very slowly as the drive is being indexed.