Explorer.exe hangs during startup and random theme change

[TheParad0x]

Hello!

My windows 7 (home premium 64-bit) is recently doing something very annoying - again.
When I start up my computer, explorer.exe will hang, making the bottom processline freeze. This last anywhere between 3-30 seconds, and occasionally with a popup saying it's crashed.

Furthermore, at 1am it *randomly* changes from my aero-theme to the default theme for about a minute, whereafter it changes back.
According to windows event logs, Desktop Window Manager, with event 9010, sends a request to disable control of desktopwindow from windows system evaluation.

I've had this issue 2 times before, but couldn't find any solution online, so I ended up having to wipe my harddrive and reinstall windows.
The issues seem to appear a few months after I've installed windows 7, they've never been there immideatly. I also haven't recently installed any new software or anything.

Hope someone can help!

 

[marsmimar]

Hello TheParad0x ans welcome to Seven Forums.

You might have a damaged or corrupt explorer.exe file. You can try refreshing it.
1. From your desktop, open Task Manager
2. From the Processes tab, highlight explorer.exe and click the End Process button
3. You'll get a "Are You Sure" prompt so click the End Process button again
4. All of your desktop icons, task bar, etc will disappear ... This is normal!
5. In Task Manager click on File > New Task (Run...) > type in explorer.exe > OK
6. In a few seconds your desktop icons, task bar, etc will reappear

This article gives some additional info.

Use This Secret Trick to Close and Restart Explorer.exe in Windows

As to why you keep having this issue, I'm not sure. You might have some damaged or corrupt system files. Try running a System File Checker scan from an elevated command prompt (Option Two in this tutorial.) If damaged or corrupt files are found you should run the scan at least three more times as stated in the Note in Option Two, Step 4.

http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/1538-sfc-scannow-command-system-file-checker.html