I’ve been having a very severe problem with explorer.exe in Windows XP Pro SP2. The problem has been occurring for quite sometime now (> 6 mo.) I have tried everything I know, but to no avail.
Here is the problem…explorer.exe (the desktop shell for windows) will at random time decide to take full computer resources (100% of CPU and start chewing RAM). The only way to restore myself to a usable windows environment is hit the power switch and reboot. The normal method of shutting down the computer is now…I use the computer until explorer crashes then hit the power. I notice the problem using occurs after using Internet Explorer 6 or Firefox 1.5.0.3. Sometimes it is preceded by another random program crashing in the same manner.
I first thought that the problems might be caused by my antivirus program at the time, aVast Home edition. I’ve since uninstalled aVast and replaced it with AnitVir. I have scanned for virus and trojans, etc, with several virus scanners and nothing has been detected. I checked by hard drives for errors, they were perfectly fine.
I have tried to remove any extra software that I don’t have to have installed.
I do not know what else to do…or how to even diagnose the problem further. I am only willing to do a reinstall of windows as a very very very last resort (I don’t want to go through that trouble…already stressed enough).
If anyone has experienced similar problems, I would be indeed grateful if you shared how you fixed the problem or are trying to fix the problem. Even if you have any educated guesses as to what might be wrong, I have a listening ear.
I’ve scanned using BitDefender online, AntiVir, and aVast…no errors. Still, I guess it wouldn’t hurt to try with symantec or panda
Do you have any good recommendations for shell replacements? I had no idea they even existed…been looking at the shell replacement for ReactOS and bb4win. Any suggestions?
Doesn’t work…explorer.exe instantly jumps back to 100% CPU usage, and I end up with the same problem as before.
I’m not sure what you mean…but the computer was made by HP (HP pavilion a384x). It may have some HP software installed. 24hrs after I bought the computer, I formatted the harddrive and installed XP Pro. I did, however, keep the HP directory with all the necessary drivers for the hardware.
Try disabling background services on your computer that are not essential to its functioning.
Does it seem to do this after any specific actions?
If it occurs after you browse any particular folder, it would be a good idea to review what is in that folder. It could be just one image or video that is hard to generate thumbnails for. Or it may be more sinister - virus codes hidden in image file tags.
Open the task manager, and watch for differences in the list of processes running. Anything with a suspicious name, and that gobbles ram + cpu when you have this problem could well be the culprit.
If all the above fail, “contact your nearest support center”.
hmm… interesting problem. I would check you’re autostart items first. I’d think that you’re probably looking at explorer trying to do something it cant do, which means it gets stuck in an infinite loop. I’ve never had problems like that in explorer, but i’ve had simmilar issues with some of the usual windows crap. Try re-installing IE6, or if you feel adventurous try the IE7 beta. I’m unsure how IE affects explorer in Xp, so I dont know excactly how it effects that, but if its anything like all the other IE’s in microsofts history, its gonna be tied to that. If re-installing IE doesnt work. Well, I would take a look at some other issues before a crash. It could also be a virus, maybe. Lots of things, if it does it after you’re on the internet I would say its most likely an IE bug. IE and explorer are interlinked a lot, in fact, once the shell is running, running another explorer.exe will give you a file browser, which is IE just in a file browser mode, type in a URL into the address bar, and see for yourself, it switches to IE mode. Quite cool, kinda like konqueror in KDE.
“A Program Stops Performing a Task or Explorer.exe Uses 100 Percent of the CPU When You Right-Click an Item in Windows Explorer.”
It is a long title for an article, but it seems to describe my problem exactly…
Microsoft suggests turning off the Menu Effects. I am testing it right now to see if it works.
Thank you for all the replies thus far. If this solution doesn’t work, I will come back to this thread and try the others.
Just one more thing that I think has not been mentioned yet. As far as I know you can repair your XP installation with an XP Pro install disk. I know you said that you would not like to reinstall but AFAIK the repair does not change files that you have created so I guess it would be safe.
Reinstalling windows (complete new install) is usually the only solution. Currently, I’ve got one pc that has been running WinXP for more than a year now, which is propably a record for me, but it is shit unstable. As soon as I have time, I will need to reinstall.
I remember back in the old days of Win95, when I use to phone MS support line, the most common answer to every problem was ‘… just reinstall Windows …’
Remember, Windows is simply not a stable OS…
If I want stability, I use Arch Linux…only has crashed on me once (when I upgraded kernel and it died on nvidia module)
I can hardly afford to reinstall XP.
Oh and BTW…that fix from Microsoft that I posted above didn’t work…I using arch to write this… I’m starting to wonder if I can take the explorer.exe file from another XP installation and overwrite my explorer.exe. Will that screw my installation? Also, how would I check the registry for problems?
I doubt replacing explorer.exe will fix the problem. It’s probably some other related module/reg key that is causing the issue. But you can try to ‘repair’ (not restore) your XP installation if you have a XP Pro CD.
You could try any of the registry checking apps available. Each one will propably find a lot of different errors. I never quite trust them, but usually they are quite harmless. There’s not much chance that they will sort you out though…
I know I may sound a bit cinical, but speaking from experience, I can tell you that you are trying to find a needle in a haystack. Why can’t you reinstall? I know that it takes(wastes) a lot of time, but in the end, it will be less time to reinstall than trying to fix it in your current installation.
I’ve re-installed IE to fix some explorer problems on win2k, Xp has a much more complex explorer. But the theory is sound, not only does it replace explorer.exe, but replaces a lot of registry keys. I have had luck using it in some cases. where it was a last resort, and re-installing was the absolute last option. I dont get how people can use a computer and think its normal to re-install you’re OS every 6months to a year, thats not normal! I’ve had one of my linux boxes up for a month straight Its not even updated (I have dialup:( ) And Its not any slower than the day i installed it. and honestly windows XP should be just as stable, And i have my XP box that doesnt even have SP1 on it(again, dialup) and its been running quite nicely. Re-installing in my mind is not a symtom of a bad install, but a symptom of either bad programming, or a bad user. A problem like this sounds like bad programming. Funny that programmers arent gods, and errors exist, re-installing an application seems to me a much more elegant solution. Digging through the registry is like finding a needle in a haystack. I’ve seem my share of wierd windows problems, and I’m just saying in my experience, when you have strange explorer problems, it just works to re-install or upgrade IE. So, you’re mileage may vary. but I’ve worked on hundreds of computers, and only had to re-install maybe half a dozen times, and most of those were because of a corrupted filesystem or registry.