Windows Management Information srvc crashing Explorer

[wazoo]

Hey all,

I have a problem that started a few months back which I *finally* traced to the Windows Management Instrumentation service. In a nutshell, when I would launch Windows Explorer, the first problem is that it would immediately become non-responsive for about 20-30 seconds. Then once back from the dead, it would randomly crash ("Explorer has stopped working") about 60% of the time I tried to navigate through it.

After much trial and error, I traced it to the Windows Management Instrumentation service which, when disabled through MSCONFIG, completely solves the problem.

Oddly.... even though disabled, System Config still shows it as "running" and Task Manager shows Winmgmt as an actively running service under the group netsvcs.

Firstly... any idea why this problem is happening? Secondly... is there a big downside to keeping it disabled? I would hate to do a complete OS reinstall to make this go away.

TIA!

Paul

BTW - I could not trace this to any program I have installed as it started a few months back and I was too busy to find what was causing it.... and have subsequently installed many programs since.

 

[usasma]

http://www.sevenforums.com/crash-lo...-generating-memory-dump-crashing-process.html