Windows Explorer crashing on right-click under x64 RTM

[jcalmighty]

Hi I've been having the same problem. I had the RC Windows 7 ultimate x64 which ran perfectly and recently performed a clean install of Windows 7 Pro x64 and almost immediately started experiencing Windows explorer crashes which seemed to happen at random. I removed both winamp remote and firefox three days ago and since then have had no crashes

 

[Uber Philf]

maybe its the firefox in your particular problem.

 

[H2SO4]

@Those who are not the OP but would like assistance with "Explorer is crashing on my machine" issues:

0) Start your own thread. It is wrong to assume that your symptoms are caused by the same root causes as the OP's.

1) Fire up Regedit.
2) Navigate to this key: "HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\Windows Error Reporting"
3) Right-click in the empty white space, then "New", DWORD, call it ForceQueue and set the value to 1.
4) Reproduce your Explorer crash.
5) Check under C:\Users\<your_account>\AppData\Local\Microsoft\Windows\WER\ReportArchive - there should be a new entry (folder) in there for your latest Explorer crash.
6) Zip up the CAB file from that folder and upload it here.

Analysis of the memory dump (MDMP) in that cabinet file may help to understand your specific Explorer crash.

==========================================

EDIT: If you don't feel confident about doing direct registry edits, steps 1 through 3 above can be accomplished instead by running this command on an elevated (run as admin) CMD prompt:

reg add "HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\Windows Error Reporting" /v ForceQueue /t REG_DWORD /d 1

 

[blinduncledallas]

Since Thursday I have had a support ticket open with Microsoft. I've posted in the other threads on the same subject. They are giving me some priority help due to me having a W7 launch party on Saturday. Lucky me.

My event viewer is being uploaded every day and they are trying to pinpoint the crashes. One thing he did straight away was uninstall Movie Maker. I've noticed the frequency of the crashes have reduced (but not stopped). There must be problems with that software but as I don't use it at all it won't be missed.

I also use Firefox and never thought that it may be the problem. I'm speaking to him again tomorrow after they go through my event viewer and I'll uninstall it if needs be to try to isolate the problem.

I know my problem may be caused by something different but I'll post here rather than starting a new thread. Hopefully it can help others once we get to the bottom of it.

 

[H2SO4]

My event viewer is being uploaded every day and they are trying to pinpoint the crashes. One thing he did straight away was uninstall Movie Maker. I've noticed the frequency of the crashes have reduced (but not stopped). There must be problems with that software but as I don't use it at all it won't be missed.

Did they ask you for memory dumps?

If not, you might want to go through the procedure I suggested a couple of posts higher to gather those data. If your crash is caused by something relatively simple, it may be possible to diagnose it quickly that way.

 

[blinduncledallas]

My event viewer is being uploaded every day and they are trying to pinpoint the crashes. One thing he did straight away was uninstall Movie Maker. I've noticed the frequency of the crashes have reduced (but not stopped). There must be problems with that software but as I don't use it at all it won't be missed.

Did they ask you for memory dumps?

If not, you might want to go through the procedure I suggested a couple of posts higher to gather those data. If your crash is caused by something relatively simple, it may be possible to diagnose it quickly that way.

He made no mention of memory dumps (sounds scatological ) but I'll prepare them for tomorrow when he rings. Thanks.

 

[H2SO4]

He made no mention of memory dumps (sounds scatological ) but I'll prepare them for tomorrow when he rings. Thanks.

Upload it here too - I'm curious

 

[blinduncledallas]

He made no mention of memory dumps (sounds scatological ) but I'll prepare them for tomorrow when he rings. Thanks.

Upload it here too - I'm curious

Ok. I will do. It will have to be in the morning as I'm just leaving the house to do real world things.

 

[Solace]

@Those who are not the OP but would like assistance with "Explorer is crashing on my machine" issues:

0) Start your own thread. It is wrong to assume that your symptoms are caused by the same root causes as the OP's.

1) Fire up Regedit.
2) Navigate to this key: "HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\Windows Error Reporting"
3) Right-click in the empty white space, then "New", DWORD, call it ForceQueue and set the value to 1.
4) Reproduce your Explorer crash.
5) Check under C:\Users\<your_account>\AppData\Local\Microsoft\Windows\WER\ReportArchive - there should be a new entry (folder) in there for your latest Explorer crash.
6) Zip up the CAB file from that folder and upload it here.

Analysis of the memory dump (MDMP) in that cabinet file may help to understand your specific Explorer crash.

==========================================

EDIT: If you don't feel confident about doing direct registry edits, steps 1 through 3 above can be accomplished instead by running this command on an elevated (run as admin) CMD prompt:

reg add "HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\Windows Error Reporting" /v ForceQueue /t REG_DWORD /d 1

your instructions dump .wer files not .cab anyhow here are the last 5 crashes i managed to snag. its acutally .7z not zip although i don't think it will matter.

 

[Solace]

i lied those times of file creations are not in line wiht the time now... not evne srue what i uploaded i did indeed follow ur instructions though.

 

[H2SO4]

your instructions dump .wer files not .cab anyhow here are the last 5 crashes i managed to snag. its acutally .7z not zip although i don't think it will matter.

Yes, you're quite right, the instructions above are incomplete. Sorry.

I updated another thread with info regarding a second registry value (CorporateWERServer) that needs to be added if the cabs/dumps are to be prevented from disappearing:

http://www.sevenforums.com/crashes-debugging/29843-explorer-exe-has-stopped-working.html#post316640

Anyway, we got lucky and two of your "reports" actually do contain dumps, possibly because you were viewing the folder contents at the time so they were "locked" and couldn't be deleted (I've yet to work out precisely what that WER mechanism is doing).

Your crashes look very similar to many of the others I've seen - heap corruption without obvious references to 3rd-party code. It may indeed be a bug in Win7 that manifests itself under very specific circumstances (relatively few experience these crashes).

This update contains newer versions of Explorer.exe and several associated executables:

An update is available to improve the stability and reliability of Windows 7 and of Windows Server 2008 R2

If the heap corruption issues which crash Explorer and the MMC turn out to be bugs known to MS, the update above may have already addressed them. Hence, I'd suggest installing the update.

 

[Solace]

update did nothing. literally just now i had mass mmc errors and right clicking on the trashbin causes explorer to keep restarting along with explorer just restarting itself from no activity.

 

[Solace]

if oyu want to rdp/vnc and debug this ur self let me know as this time it seems to be pretty persistent in staying now despite the update.

 

[Uber Philf]

Un installed FF3 yet?

 

[Solace]

ff is not causing it because it occurred without the browser off a fresh format.

 

[Uber Philf]

That's quite a situation. DVD is faulty possibly?

 

[Solace]

installed from usb/dvd/hd and a valid iso so no...

H2SO4 your instructions to produce those dumps now do not even produce anything in those folders unlike before and with the patch its less frequent but still occurs at random times. basically it wont happen and when it does i can right click nearly any icon anywhere and explorer will crash and during that time if i open MMC it will produce the error related to the snap in and such but still no dumps are being provided in those folders. after waiting say a minute or 2 of no activity the crashes will stop. they will always keep occuring until i simply just do nothing and wait...

 

[H2SO4]

installed from usb/dvd/hd and a valid iso so no...

H2SO4 your instructions to produce those dumps now do not even produce anything in those folders unlike before and with the patch its less frequent but still occurs at random times. basically it wont happen and when it does i can right click nearly any icon anywhere and explorer will crash and during that time if i open MMC it will produce the error related to the snap in and such...

I'm quite interested to try to understand the link to the MMC.

... but still no dumps are being provided in those folders.

If you've added both registry values - ForceQueue and CorporateWERServer - the dumps should be in the \ReportQueue folder and not the ReportArchive. Basically, they're now getting queued instead of sent (to MS) and then archived (deleted).

after waiting say a minute or 2 of no activity the crashes will stop. they will always keep occuring until i simply just do nothing and wait...

Curious. Are you quite certain that you've experienced this on a rebuilt-from-scratch machine with absolutely no additional updates, drivers, games, apps of any kind?

 

[Solace]

the explorer right click issue has happend since always and yes off a fresh format. as for the MMC issue only started occurring along with the explorer issue after this format and after the reliability patch update. before that it was only the right click issue. as for the dumps que folder only has one dumb from a long time ago and its produced multiple error reports so i don't believe its working as it should. weird thing is not even the event viewer is picking up the MMC errors or the explorer ones now... like the shell will restart itself randomly on right clicks and during that time if i proceed to go to event viewer then the MMC errors will be displayed. not sure what i could have possibly changed.

 

[Lucky098]

I would think it may cause by either motherboard or video card driver that may have cause explorer.exe crash but not sure -- I was install 64bits that still crashing when I press right-button of mouse (sometime) - for 32bits it was ok so maybe 64bits may have the problems with any drivers like audio, graphic card driver,etc.. hopefully it may fix the problems soon for the 64bits OS - MS seem took so long to fix the problems for Vista and W7 64bits to stop the explorer.exe from crashing.