Right Click on desktop causing Explorer.exe crash!!!

[Mr Smiley]

Hi DickFalcon

Yes, please let us all know if your system becomes more stable. I'll be very surprised if it doesn't.

 

[DickFalcon]

Has been working perfect since last post until I got a random reboot about 30mins ago. Screen just went black and it restarted. I was in the lobby room for a game at the time of the scene.

However, I have not seen explorer crash at all since turning off IE etc as suggested by mr smiley

 

[Mr Smiley]

So far, so good my dear friends!

 

[Rouphen]

Hi, I'm from Spain and I had the same problems as described in this forum: rightclick errors the most part of the time, but random crashes in desktop and folders too. At first, I thought that the problems were related with a third-party program (WinRAR, etc.), so I used Shellexview to turn off some stuff. The problem remained, sometimes with only a few crashes per day, sometimes with a lot more, turning my windows 7 experience in something really annoying. I didn't want to do a clean install, so I started to search the web.

Finally, I found this forum and the suggestions of Mr. Smiley. I gave it a try and... vôila. For the moment, my OS remains stable. I registered in this forum only to say: THANKS! Ah, and before I forget it, I want to say that in the precisly moment I was disabling MediaCenter, DVD Maker and IE8, I got an explorer error- without doing any kind of click-. I think that it is a good sign of what is the crashs responsible.

Thanks again.
Best regards .

PD: Microsoft, fix it!

 

[Mr Smiley]

Hi Rouphen

Thanks for providing us all with some valuable feedback and for your kind comments.

Let's hope that we've narrowed down this issue to a problem with IE8 somehow.

Rouphen, please keep us posted as to how things progress for you.

Warmest Regards

Neil

 

[cvor]

The IE fix didn't work for me unfortunately. I also created a different log in and it didn't take long for it to happen there.

The last couple days I have gotten the Com Surrogate error when closing a jpg (not every time I close one but sporadically) and then when I click on desktop I get the Explorer error. I still get the Explorer error without the Com surrogate error as well.

I wonder if there is a relation.

I tried creating a new sign on, I have the most recent drivers for everything, disabled Avast, messed with shell menus, disabled IE and Media Center, and not sure what else to do. I did read that my mouse (Ci-20) is compatible with 32 bit Windows but it says Pending Info for 64 bit (which is what I have). I don't see how these problems can be caused by the mouse though.

This is frustrating and MS Support is no help.

 

[Lucky098]

So far, so good my dear friends!

I got same update yesterday night -- it was updated after 8pm (UK time)

 

[cvor]

After going on MS Support site, people seem to think it is Mozilla Private Browsing. I will give it a shot

 

[Rouphen]

cvor, after disabling IE8 try to pass a registry cleaner, like CCleaner. If the problem is related with IE8 and you don't clean the registry, probably the crashes will remain. I don't think that Mozilla Firefox is the mind-in-the-shadow of this crashes, because a lot of people without it installed are having the same crashes as described in this forum.

However, your com surrogate errors are something new to me. In Windows 7 I never had problems with com surrogate, but in Vista it happened to me sometimes. Com surrogate fails are related with DEP, and that points- maybe- to a thirdparty app or to a file with strange behavior. Maybe the explorer crashes and the com surrogate crashes are different things in your case, with different origin.

Greetings.

 

[Mr Smiley]

I am absolutely positive Firefox has nothing to do with the problem. I have configured Firefox to have Private Browsing enabled since making the change/s I recommended and I have not experienced one issue whatsoever and it's been 5 days now.

NB: I have NOT installed any software for my Logitech Keyboard and Mouse.

Cvor, as previously mentioned, I turned off IE8 immediately after a clean install together with Media Centre.

 

[Mr Smiley]

Cvor

Could you please post an image/details of your COM Surrogate event so we can try and help you.

Thanks.

 

[Mr Smiley]

FYI - a post dated 20/10/09 from new member b5140

 

[Rouphen]

I have new info:

I was customizing my PC and, eventually, I turned on the hidden Quick Launch Toolbar in the Windows Taskbar. As you can see, the route of the Quick Launch is related with Internet Explorer.

[%userprofile%\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Quick Launch]

Ok, then, suddenly, just after a few seconds, explorer crashes two or three times... until I turned off this Quick Launch and re-login in Win 7.

Since that, all ok again. So, I'm not a scientific, but I think that is a great evidence.

 

[papahood]

I am absolutely positive Firefox has nothing to do with the problem. I have configured Firefox to have Private Browsing enabled since making the change/s I recommended and I have not experienced one issue whatsoever and it's been 5 days now.

NB: I have NOT installed any software for my Logitech Keyboard and Mouse.

Cvor, as previously mentioned, I turned off IE8 immediately after a clean install together with Media Centre.

well this is confusing....i haven't had a single crash since disabling private browsing in FF and i haven't turned anything off in IE8 either. I'm on my 5th day now crash free. i'm just wondering if it is just some bug within windows 7 that will be or has been addressed in an update and we will never really know what it is

 

[Mr Smiley]

Interesting Papahood. I noticed that although I turned IE8 off in 'Windows and Features', it still shows as having started when I view the IE tab in Autoruns v9.56 by Mark Russinovich from Windows Sysinternals: Documentation, downloads and additional resources. (refer Image).

Rouphen sounds like he might be onto something interesting also. I'm not using my quick launch, in fact I can't even locate the option to enable it like I normally can so that's a little strange I would have thought.

The other thing I've done is ventured into the Local Group Policy Editor (run gpedit.msc to get in there) > User Configuration > Administrative Templates > Desktop > Desktop, and configured Active Desktop etc. (Refer Image).

Anyway Ladies & Gentlemen, keep the feedback and comments coming. I'm confident we'll solve this issue soon.

NB: Rouphen, I stand to be corrected, but I do believe there is a relationship between the COM Surrogate Critical Event and the DllHost.exe Stopped Working event as I'm sure both of these appeared in the one report I received last week?

 

[Mr Smiley]

Hi Lucky098

Thanks for the update my friend!

 

[Mr Smiley]

Here's a couple of posts I located on 'Windows Vista Tips' website regarding the IE8 scenario aswell FYI.

Neil

 

[GCardDell89]

i did what mr smiley had said and so far been perfect... jus signed up to confirm its working well i got rid of IE8 coo considering i use MF and windows dvd maker gon convert x to dvd and windows media center gon wmp11 so def worth the shot and ever since i did it i been right clicking smoothly lol

 

[DickFalcon]

Yeah explorer has started crashing again for me despite turning off IE, media centre and dvd maker. I have been getting this error in the logs quite a bit:

The HomeGroup Listener service terminated with service-specific error %%-2147023143.

I'm just on a small home network which I've disabled for the time being to see it it helps at all.

Here's the explorer crash:

Faulting application name: Explorer.EXE, version: 6.1.7600.16404, time stamp: 0x4a765771
Faulting module name: msvcrt.dll, version: 7.0.7600.16385, time stamp: 0x4a5bdfbe
Exception code: 0xc000041d
Fault offset: 0x000000000000117a
Faulting process id: 0xeb4
Faulting application start time: 0x01ca6e047f80c874
Faulting application path: C:\Windows\Explorer.EXE
Faulting module path: C:\Windows\system32\msvcrt.dll
Report Id: 871e50d3-d9f8-11de-bf70-00261896e147

FF private browsing has been disabled since I started using it so I don't see how that can be the cause of this crash.

 

[Rouphen]

I'm not an expert in com surrogate crashes, so anything is posible, but in my Vista 64 all of that kind of crashes were related with programs or specific files. Hopefully we will find a solution for everybody, although it seems totally randomly.

The last info I read in the web tells something like this: turn off IE8 it's not the same thing as uninstall it. In some way, the problematic files still exist and may create crashes if some program needs them. In fact, certain programs require IE8 to function properly, even to be installed...

Mr. Smiley, to activate the Quick Launch: right click in windows task bar/ taskbars/ new taskbar. Then, paste this %userprofile%\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Quick Launch . You can try it and we will see if the crashes return. But if you can't activate it, that's so strange...

Greetings.