Windows Explorer freezes on right-click

[MrYossu]

My PC is generally running fine, but I have an intermittent problem.

Sometimes, if I right-click a file or folder in Windows Explorer, I get the busy indicator, and it just sits there. I don't get the white fade-out like when a window stops responding, but Explorer doesn't respond to any actions. My only option is to open task Manager and manually kill the explorer.exe process and restart it. Sometimes this fixes it, sometimes I have to do this a few times. Sometimes I have to restart the machine.

This doesn't seem to be related to any specific drive because...

1) It happens equally randomly on any of my three drives
2) While Explorer is not responding, I can navigate around the drives from other applications, such as the "File open" dialog box in a text editor

Anyone any ideas what might be the cause? Please let me know further info I can provide.

Thanks

P.S. I left it while I was typing this post, and just noticed that it finally responded, after about five minutes. Don't know if that helps.

 

[mrjimphelps]

You may have a rogue non-Microsoft service running in the background, misbehaving, slowing everything down. To see if this is the case, you can run MSCONFIG, go to the services tab, and check the box that will hide all Microsoft services. Disable all non-Microsoft services, then reboot, to see if that solved the sluggishness problem. If that didn’t solve the problem, then go back into MSCONFIG and re-enable all of the non-Microsoft services. However, if it did solve the problem, then you know that one or more of the non-Microsoft services is the culprit. Using MSCONFIG, re-enable the non-Microsoft services one at a time, clicking Apply then rebooting after each re-enable. When things get sluggish again, you will know that the service you just enabled is the culprit. Disable it permanently in MSCONFIG, and make note of the name of that service. Continue the process till you have checked all of the non-Microsoft services.

 

[MrYossu]

Hello,

Thanks for the reply. The only problem is that this is intermittent, so I can go for a few days without it happening, and rebooting always fixes it. I wouldn't be able to do what you said, as I would have to disable one service, reboot (which would fix the problem), wait for the problem to happen again, all the while being without whichever service I have disabled (and very likely need). If the problem came back, I would then have to go through this all again.

I understand your suggestion, but don't see how I can do it. Any other ideas? Thanks again.