# Windows Explorer stops working when I right click icons



## Gumelo (Apr 26, 2007)

I just reinstalled vista (business edition) to a new partition on a brand new Asus q7s laptop. Prior to the reinstallition, it seemed to be working fine. Now if I successively right click on Desktop icons, I get the error message:



> Windows explorer has stopped working





> Windows is checking for a solution to the problem


Of course, no solution comes up, but I can duplicate this behavior consistently by successively right click on icons and having the standard drop down menu come up, after explorer crashes it resets my desktop, all the desktop icons will automatically space themselves toghether, no matter where i had them on the desktop.

I've read around and I really don't feel like reinstalling vista again and all my apps. reinstalling windows is not a good options, that's like a car with a flat tire and the solution being to buy a new car.

is there any alternative to doing a full reinstall? 

Any suggestions appreciated.


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## bhahar84 (Jan 7, 2008)

Hi Gumelo!!

Try to check your event viewer and see whether it gives a clue about any error. Might be a goo idea if you can print screen, and attach the screenshot together here again :grin:


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## Gumelo (Apr 26, 2007)

bhahar84 said:


> Hi Gumelo!!
> 
> Try to check your event viewer and see whether it gives a clue about any error. Might be a goo idea if you can print screen, and attach the screenshot together here again :grin:



Thanks for the replay, I can't give you a screenshot as when windows explorer is crashing the "prt scr" button doesn't work.

However, here is a screenshot of the logsview and the error. I'm not sure what to make out of the information in the logs viewer, but any help is appreciated:










In part because of these random problems with vista is why I now have a dual boot setup with linux, you don't get this type of random instability.

EDIT: I have scanned my computer for virsuses and nothing came up, as far as software compatibility. All the programs that I have installed were working fine with Vista prior to the re-installation.


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## bhahar84 (Jan 7, 2008)

Can you try to restart the computer. Keep pressing F8 while computer restarting, and you will be given a options to go Safe mode. Choose the Safe mode. In here, try to type "msconfig" in search bar, and choose the "Diagnostic Startup" and try restart into normal mode again. Now, try to use the computer as usual, see whether you get the same error again. :smile:


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## Gumelo (Apr 26, 2007)

bhahar84 said:


> Can you try to restart the computer. Keep pressing F8 while computer restarting, and you will be given a options to go Safe mode. Choose the Safe mode. In here, try to type "msconfig" in search bar, and choose the "Diagnostic Startup" and try restart into normal mode again. Now, try to use the computer as usual, see whether you get the same error again. :smile:


I did as you said, booted up in diagnostic mode. Unfortunately, it still happened in diagnostic mode as well. This makes me think that it's a deeper problem than just a conflict with some installed application.

EDIT: I just tried it again in safe mode, and it happend there, this sounds bad.


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## bhahar84 (Jan 7, 2008)

Did you installed any software before this happens? Or you just experience this after you fully reinstall the system?


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## Gumelo (Apr 26, 2007)

bhahar84 said:


> Did you installed any software before this happens? Or you just experience this after you fully reinstall the system?


Here is the full situation: I bought this laptop about a month ago. Vista was preinstalled. It came with recovery disks and it also had a separte recovery partition on the HD (120gb HD with 8gb recovery partition). I installed all my regular apps (MS office, adobe photoshop, adobe acrobat, kaspersky antivirus, etc.). It was fine, no problems. I decided to reinstall vista since I wanted to utilize the space used by the recovery partition as part of my regular drive but without a partition, also I wanted to dual boot a linux distro (ubuntu).

So I formated the HD, partitioned it, installed vista with the recovery disks on the first partition (80gb) and installed ubuntu on the 2nd partition (32gb). All went well including the dual booting, (ubuntu working perfectly)

I installed all the drivers, and in fact, did not install a lot of the bloatware (which I removed before) that came with the original preinstallation, this was only applications, not drivers, so nothing essential was missing. This all took like 7 hours, and as I was almost finished installing my apps when I noticed this error kept reoccuring. It seems to only happen when I right click icons successively, atm anyway.

I really don't want to have to reinstall vista, this will be another freaking day out of my life for an OS I really don't like, but I need it for work and a few applications unique to windows, so I'd really like a work around.

Is there anyway to reinstall windows explorer? For some reason, I'm feeling that I'm going to locked into be locked into reinstalling vista, god forbid.


God, microsoft blows. Any suggestions would be appreciated.


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## bhahar84 (Jan 7, 2008)

It seems like your vista maybe corrupted due to this reinstallation. I might suggest you to run the Repair Console on the vista operating system, see whether that solve the issue.


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## Gumelo (Apr 26, 2007)

bhahar84 said:


> It seems like your vista maybe corrupted due to this reinstallation. I might suggest you to run the Repair Console on the vista operating system, see whether that solve the issue.


I'll try it, but If I had to guess, the problem lies in vista and just its bloated construction. I did some searching and it seems there has been quite a few reports of this to microsoft:

http://forums.microsoft.com/TechNet/ShowPost.aspx?PostID=2697695&SiteID=17

Of course, Microsoft has no solution for this. I'm sure it will come out with service pack 3 of vista.

My dislike of vista and microsoft is confirmed everyday.

If the repair console doesn't fix it, then I'll trying reinstall vista 1 more time, but if I run into any more problems which require reinstallation, then I'm just going to put linux as my main OS and I'm going to run vista in vmware. MS really blows.


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## EdisonC (May 31, 2008)

Have you tried checking for misbehaving shell extensions?
http://www.helpwithwindows.com/techfiles/explorer-crashes.html
(Note: That page describes using a freeware utility called ShellExView to troubleshoot shell extensions, but it links to an older version of the utility. Google ShellExView to find Vista-compatible version 1.22.)

This worked for me to isolate and disable a couple of problematic extensions (both named "PowerDesk ZIP Extension" installed by PowerDesk Pro 7 version 7.0.1.1.) Since this was NOT a problem directly after PowerDesk installation, I don't know whether it was really due to PowerDesk or to subsequently installed software. Unfortunately, Vista Service Pack 1 is one of those subsequently installed, so I still have some digging to do. Meanwhile ShellExView has given me back my right-click context menu, so at least I've backed off from my initial plan to reinstall the operating system...

Good luck.


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## invisi1407 (Aug 18, 2008)

Using ShellExView I was able to track down one "bad guy" on my computer that caused the same problem as you guys have:


```
Name           : CmdLineContextMenu Class
Type           : Context Menu
Description    : SecuROM context menu for Explorer
Version        : 1,1,224,0
Product Name   : (none)
Company        : Sony DADC Austria AG
Filename       : %SystemRoot%\system32\CmdLineExt.dll
File Extensions: .exe, exefile
File Size      : 107.888
```
SecuROM is copy protection software used in many PC games. I believe mine came from Neverwinter Nights 2.

I hope this helps!


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## desirexnoel (Sep 21, 2008)

THANK YOU ALL SO MUCH FOR THIS THREAD AND FOR RESPONDING! I was having this problem for DAYS before I stumbled in here. I am not very tech savvy so I was too intimidated to even try to find a solution... but anyway, I decided I had to eventually and THANK YOU! ray:


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## terboo58 (Mar 15, 2009)

invisi1407 said:


> Using ShellExView I was able to track down one "bad guy" on my computer that caused the same problem as you guys have:
> 
> 
> ```
> ...


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## terboo58 (Mar 15, 2009)

you are the most excellent person in this world for solving computer problems, it worked, it worked, my right click is restored, it is restored!!!!, i am a very happy man!!!!


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## Augie1965 (Dec 16, 2009)

Had this problem ... whenever I right click to "copy" "cut" etc. a file, the drop down menu would not come up. Instead Windows Explorer would bring up an error message and exit the program.

I downloaded the shell program described in this forum: shexview.zip.

Ran the program, looked at my old PowerDesk items and disabled them. These were the only ones I disabled based on a similar problem described below.

Once these were disabled, I went back to Win Explorer and right click brought up menu so I could copy, cut, etc.

THANKS! THIS WAS AN EASY FIX THANKS TO THIS FORUM.

AUGIE1965


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## mark_alf (Jan 23, 2010)

Had the same issue with my computer running windows 7 Ultimate x64

Any right click would pop up that annoying box saying explorer had stopped responding.

After downloading ShellExView and having a good look and disabling some non microsoft ext's it turns out for me it was: FileZilla 3 Shell Extension.

Thanks for all the advice that was posted on here  was a great help.:wave:


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## bjmartens (Mar 10, 2010)

Wow I finally found a support site that has a real answer to this problem!

I downloaded ShellExView and it displaed a long list of extensions. How do I know which I ones I should disable to regain the right-click functionality of Windows Explorer on my Vista machine?

BJ Martens


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## Lars1963 (Apr 29, 2010)

EdisonC, invisi1407: You two are heroes! Thankyou!! ray:


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## firebird999 (May 30, 2010)

EdisonC said:


> Have you tried checking for misbehaving shell extensions?
> http://www.helpwithwindows.com/techfiles/explorer-crashes.html
> (Note: That page describes using a freeware utility called ShellExView to troubleshoot shell extensions, but it links to an older version of the utility. Google ShellExView to find Vista-compatible version 1.22.)
> 
> ...



I do not know how long this advice has been here but i have to say thanks as this solved my window explorer problem, i took was having a problem when i was right clicking kept crashing, used this shell thing and found out it was a programm conflicting with explorer so deleted that program and i can now right click again thank you, great advice :smile:


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