Win 7 64 bit- Explorer

Has anyone else noticed Explorer (explorer.exe) has started crashing a lot on right-click in Win 7? It's even doing this on clean install with just Windows updates applied.

John.

Edited by deleted (Fri 20-Nov-09 14:51:15)

Not on mine it doesn't (Win 7 Pro 64Bit and Win7 Ultimate 64bit)..

Any particular part of Explorer??

64bit Pro here and its been fine when I have used it.

I prefer Google Chrome

I prefer Google Chrome

Not Internet Explorer. Explorer, the windows file manager.

John.

Any particular part of Explorer??

Seems to be random on right-click anywhere in an explorer window or the desktop.

John.

Hmm. Google reveals that it might be Firefox 3.5 that is responsible. That would correlate with my timeline as I recently did switch from Chrome to Firefox and have been using Win7 for much longer without problems. I'll switch to another browser and see if the problem goes away.

John.

It might be worth setting IE back as default browser, but running Firefox from Icon and see if that cures it

I've had this problem on and off with Vista and Windows 7.

I did some searching around the internet and one train of thought reported by several people was that it was caused by incompatibility between the operating system and some shell extensions that software may have installed.

These extensions are the things that give you a variety of 'options' when you right click.

Windows puts it's own in, which are OK, but so does a lot of the software that we install and with many you don't get the option not to install the shell extension.

For example; 7Zip gives an option to 'extract' a zipped file when you right click on it.

There is a little 'freebe' application that reveals all the shell extensions that are installed, and gives you the ability to 'disable' - or 'enable' - the extension.

I would look to the ones placed there by software not related to the operating system and 'disable' them one at a time until you find the one(s) responsible.

My problem was (is) associated with a programme that I use a lot and therefore I left it 'enabled' because I prefer to have the functionality despite the ocassional 'crash'.

It can be a bit time consuming to find the 'problem' one, but it is easy to 'enable' them again so there's no permanent damage done.

See link for application.

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

I only use FF, 3.5.5 atm.

I don't recall Win7 ever crashing, FF has crashed once

But to be fair to 7-zip, it is one of the good ones, as you can pick and choose which of its actions you want on the Right Click menu, including none at all if you so choose. Just go to 7-zip File Manager. Click Tools, Options, the Plugins tab and then Click the Options button and pick which actions you want. Including whether 7-zip has its own cascading entry in the Right Click drop down menu if, like me, you have quite a few of its actions selected for the Right Click menu.

As to Nirsoft, along with SysInternals, probably among the best sets of general Windows utilities available. Seen Nirsoft's new launcher yet?

I agree, 7Zip is a useful tool and perhaps it was not the best example to use

But there are many programmes that install stuff without asking or still do it even when you've said no; Corel Panit Shop Pro Photo XI for example.

Not seen Nirsoft's launcher yet. Will have a little 'fiddle' with that today before the footie comes on

Edit
Just had a look at Nirsoft. I misunderstood your post; I thought it was ready but I see it's still in development, but it does look as if it will be a useful tool.

Edited by deleted (Sun 22-Nov-09 08:32:46)

Thanks all for the tips. I'm going to try Ken's suggestion first as I had this crashing before I installed anything that added things to the context menu. In fact, it was a clean install with only Firefox installed. (Sorry, I didn't mention that in the OP as I didn't believe a browser could possibly affect it.) Also, on my old install all my other tools that do add to the context menu were working fine for quite some time and Firefox seems to be the main change when all of this started happening.

I'll post back in a week or so if this cures it, or sooner if it does not.

John.

Just to let you know what I did in the end was to install Firefox 3.6 beta. The problem has not recurred, so I believe there is something about Firefox 3.5.5 that Windows 7 doesn't like.

Alas my online banking (NatWest) won't allow me to use it! Hope they release soon.

John.

In reply to a post by Sark:

Just to let you know what I did in the end was to install Firefox 3.6 beta. The problem has not recurred, so I believe there is something about Firefox 3.5.5 that Windows 7 doesn't like.

Alas my online banking (NatWest) won't allow me to use it! Hope they release soon.

John.

Natwest were very slow, had trouble with using 3.5 in beta.(I had to use the IE tab add-on)
Are all your add-ons that you had in 3.5 working in 3.6?

Had considerable problems with this after doing a clean install of Win 7 Ultimate 64 bit and the recommended Intel Win 7 chipset driver for my motherboard. Windows Explorer crashed, hung repeatedly.
A clean install using the Microsoft supplied drivers only, cured this problem

Cant you spoof your user agent to get past it?

Also on a similar note i've had this issue, an update a few weeks back seemed to greatly reduce it. On the note of firefox i've had the issue without firefox being installed, or running.

Cant you spoof your user agent to get past it?

Ah good thinking. I changed 'general.useragent.extra.firefox' to 'Firefox/3.5.5' in about:config and now I can get on to NatWest. Thanks, didn't even think of that.

On the note of firefox i've had the issue without firefox being installed, or running.

Yeah, I don't think it's actually a bug in Firefox but my problems started and ended with Firefox 3.5.5. So I do think whatever the bug is - that version of Firefox was aggravating it in my case.

John.

Are all your add-ons that you had in 3.5 working in 3.6?

I'm not using any add-ons. Well apart from Java, PDF X-Change, Flash and Silverlight. But they all work fine.

John.

Have you updated to FF 3.6RC?
It allows you to use Natwest.