Explorer crashes

[tdgulbra]

Has anyone else experienced this?

I regularly update ME (and any other software I have, including Norton AV). I just want to eliminate the "you need to upgrade" answer.

I usually start an explorer session by right-clicking START and choosing Explore. Recently, this method has caused Explorer to crash. Not just the window, but the whole thing. The Task bar disappears and everything is gone. The wierd part is that if I start explorer by using the "Windows + E" key combination, it runs fine.

Any suggestions? I am considering going to something more stable, like Win 3.0 (just kidding).

 

[Ladygnome]

I always start at the antivirus solution - even if you have antivirus software running. This is because viruses can sometimes effect your antivirus software's ability to work, and because a lot of people either do not update their antivirus signatures or do not set up their antivirus software to scan all files.
Use an online scanner such as

http://www.bitdefender.com

Select all the checkboxes and have it thoroughly scan your drives. If you have an antivirus product, then uninstall it and reinstall it and immediately update your virus signatures.
If you do not find a virus, then attempt to uninstall your mouse driver and reinstall your mouse driver.
If you have installed any other programs lately or downloaded anything, then you can also uninstall them and remove temp files, etc. to see if this helps.
Yes, scan and then defrag the computer.
If you still have the problem after all of this, then you probably have some kind of conflict and might be best to backup your data, format your hard drive, and reinstall everything piece by piece making sure your problem does not reoccur as you go.
Hope this helps. Good Luck.

 

[mudskipper]

Purely out of interest....

When you right click Start and bring up explorer, it should start you in explorer with "start menu" highlighted. When you hit Windows+E, it should start you elsewhere (on my computer, I think).

If you hit Win+E and then browse down to c:\windows\start menu (i think that is where it is in win me), does it lock up?

 

[tdgulbra]

Sorry I haven't replied in a long while.

Yes, I regularly scan for viruses with the most up-to-date signature files Symantec has.

The issues with where the Explorer window starts is interesting, but my machine was not "locking up". Explorer was GPF'ing. Yes, I know GPF's don't exist. Let's just say it is odd when Explorer is the program that "has performed an illegal operation and will be shut down."

The new information I have to provide is memory. I was running with 64MB. Of course, the more I added the slower the system got, but I just upgraded to 512MB and the problems went away. At this point I am assuming that ME's swap manager was not handling things correctly and crashing explorer. Now that I have LOTS of memory, explorer runs fine.

Thanks for the suggestions.