Windows Explorer Lockup

Running on Win XP Pro

I have several ways of opening a Windows Explorer (WE) window
One is a desktop icon ctr-dragged from the start menu.
One is from a toolbar that I made.
These seem to have no problem.

The last is from a Win XP Pro toolbar.

This last one will sometimes create a WE window that locks up.
Once it happen, all remaining attempts from this WIn XP Toolbar also
lock up.

I can only kill it with Process Explorer (PE), but then the desktop is
also cleared and an attempt to restart WE from PE (RUN cmd) fails and
the only recourse is to reboot.

Is this a known problem ?
Any way to fix ?

OGER wrote:

Running on Win XP Pro

I have several ways of opening a Windows Explorer (WE) window
One is a desktop icon ctr-dragged from the start menu.
One is from a toolbar that I made.
These seem to have no problem.

The last is from a Win XP Pro toolbar.

This last one will sometimes create a WE window that locks up.
Once it happen, all remaining attempts from this WIn XP Toolbar also
lock up.

I can only kill it with Process Explorer (PE), but then the desktop is
also cleared and an attempt to restart WE from PE (RUN cmd) fails and
the only recourse is to reboot.

Is this a known problem ?
Any way to fix ?

Shell Extensions (right click menu items) seem
to be pretty bad for making File Explorer unhappy.

You could try starting File Explorer ("explorer.exe") from
Task Manager, which has a run box.

Normally in Task Manager, you look for DrWatson type entries.
WinXP will start one or two of those. Killing the DrWatson
(reporter to Microsoft), the one using less memory, allows
File Explorer to automatically restart itself. It's the
fact that Dr.Watson is jammed up, that's preventing the
automatic restart of File Explorer, after you kill it
with a Task Manager or Process Explorer.

If you kill the larger DrWatson process, it causes another
one to start. Once you figure out the correct DrWatson
of the two that might be running at the moment,
recovery will be easier.

Paul

I am running Sysinternals Process Explorer v16.20

Clues as what to look for by name ?


Paul wrote:
OGER wrote:

Running on Win XP Pro

I have several ways of opening a Windows Explorer (WE) window
One is a desktop icon ctr-dragged from the start menu.
One is from a toolbar that I made.
These seem to have no problem.

The last is from a Win XP Pro toolbar.

This last one will sometimes create a WE window that locks up.
Once it happen, all remaining attempts from this WIn XP Toolbar also
lock up.

I can only kill it with Process Explorer (PE), but then the desktop is
also cleared and an attempt to restart WE from PE (RUN cmd) fails and
the only recourse is to reboot.

Is this a known problem ?
Any way to fix ?

Shell Extensions (right click menu items) seem
to be pretty bad for making File Explorer unhappy.

You could try starting File Explorer ("explorer.exe") from
Task Manager, which has a run box.

Normally in Task Manager, you look for DrWatson type entries.
WinXP will start one or two of those. Killing the DrWatson
(reporter to Microsoft), the one using less memory, allows
File Explorer to automatically restart itself. It's the
fact that Dr.Watson is jammed up, that's preventing the
automatic restart of File Explorer, after you kill it
with a Task Manager or Process Explorer.

If you kill the larger DrWatson process, it causes another
one to start. Once you figure out the correct DrWatson
of the two that might be running at the moment,
recovery will be easier.

Paul

drwtsn32 opens. Anything to check or uncheck here to help ?

C:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Application Data\Microsoft\Dr Watson
No log file. Must be cleared.

OGER wrote:

I am running Sysinternals Process Explorer v16.20

Clues as what to look for by name ?


Paul wrote:
OGER wrote:

Running on Win XP Pro

I have several ways of opening a Windows Explorer (WE) window
One is a desktop icon ctr-dragged from the start menu.
One is from a toolbar that I made.
These seem to have no problem.

The last is from a Win XP Pro toolbar.

This last one will sometimes create a WE window that locks up.
Once it happen, all remaining attempts from this WIn XP Toolbar also
lock up.

I can only kill it with Process Explorer (PE), but then the desktop is
also cleared and an attempt to restart WE from PE (RUN cmd) fails and
the only recourse is to reboot.

Is this a known problem ?
Any way to fix ?

Shell Extensions (right click menu items) seem
to be pretty bad for making File Explorer unhappy.

You could try starting File Explorer ("explorer.exe") from
Task Manager, which has a run box.

Normally in Task Manager, you look for DrWatson type entries.
WinXP will start one or two of those. Killing the DrWatson
(reporter to Microsoft), the one using less memory, allows
File Explorer to automatically restart itself. It's the
fact that Dr.Watson is jammed up, that's preventing the
automatic restart of File Explorer, after you kill it
with a Task Manager or Process Explorer.

If you kill the larger DrWatson process, it causes another
one to start. Once you figure out the correct DrWatson
of the two that might be running at the moment,
recovery will be easier.

Paul

OGER wrote:

drwtsn32 opens. Anything to check or uncheck here to help ?

C:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Application Data\Microsoft\Dr Watson
No log file. Must be cleared.


Dr.Watson reports to Microsoft.

It reports software failures, even on OSes where
"nobody cares" any more.

You can "unhook" Dr.Watson, but I've never bothered
to look up a recipe for that. It's possible instead,
to store minidmp (.dmp) files locally, instead of
sending them to Microsoft and destroying the evidence.

The thing is, if your desktop "dies" because explorer.exe
died, killing the smaller of the two Dr.Watson processes
may allow explorer.exe to fork a new copy. That's all the
advice I can give. It's marginally easier to "give Watson
a whack", than to use the Run box to start another explorer.exe
from whatever tool you use.

When I got my .dmp thing working, an examination of
the stack trace showed a "nonexistent" subroutine
(ordinal 65?) was getting executed. Then Explorer would
die. But it wasn't apparent what the root cause was.
Even with the stack trace, I was no further ahead.
Googling the breadcrumbs didn't tell me a thing.

It turned out to be bad RAM, and everything has
been fine ever since.

While that was going on, adding *any* Shell Extensions
to the right-click menu, caused havoc.

*******

If you want to play with Shell Extensions, there's a tool.

https://www.nirsoft.net/utils/shexview.html

Paul

"OGER" wrote

| The last is from a Win XP Pro toolbar.
|
| This last one will sometimes create a WE window that locks up.
| Once it happen, all remaining attempts from this WIn XP Toolbar also
| lock up.
|

What's a WinXP Pro toolbar? If you've installed
some kind of 3rd-party toolbat that might make a
difference. I don't think there's anything specific
to Pro. But I also don't get why you need so
many ways to open Explorer. I don't really ever
open Explorer per se. I just have various folder
and drive shortcuts on the Desktop.