So...my "explorer.exe" refuses to work.

**Djoron** · 2012-12-07, 05:41 PM

Hey there computer-forum people.

Since last Friday the explorer.exe appears as "not responding" right after Windows 7 finished loading.
My desktop is all black, the task-bar as well and it only shows the date and time.
Running it in any way only leads to it crashing again.
Also Windows is taking a lot longer to load now. I'm 5-10 seconds in the welcome screen in oppose to 0.5 seconds previously.
Everything else is still working fine though, I can do everything I always did by simply starting things through the run-command in the task-manager.

Still it shouldn't be like this.
My PC is rather new, couple months old only, but the support from the site I ordered it didn't respond yet.

What I did so far:
First I did the obligatory malware-scans, which didn't really fix the issue.
Then I reset my Windows to a former point, it helped, everything was back to normal, until I started my PC the next day.
(I was able to start and shut it down w/o any problem before.)

Then I reinstalled it from scratch, from the DVD, again everything was fine until the next day.

I got my Windows on my SSD and my regular programs and such on my HDD, so so far I only did stuff to the SSD, as I don't really want to reinstall everything else unless I really have to.

My system:
OS: Windows 7 (64bit / Home Premium)
CPU: i7 3770K
RAM: 8MB
GPU: Geforce GTX 680
Sound: Creative Soundblaster X-FI Titanium
SSD: Samsung 830 Series 256GB
HDD: Western Digital WDC WD1002FAEX-00Y9A0 (1TB)
Motherboard: Asus P8Z77-V LE Plus

So...is there anything I can do to try and fix this?
Is there perhaps something on my HDD that breaks everything (I only got Steam, Firefox, Skype and some games on it, nothing really exotic.) or could it be a hardware problem causing the explorer to continually die?
Because life's "a bit" easier WITH the desktop, task-bar and start menu working. ^^

**The Cat** · 2012-12-07, 05:49 PM

Once it crashes can you reopen it? Task manager and run new task/process of explorer.exe

**Djoron** · 2012-12-07, 05:51 PM

Originally Posted by The Cat

Once it crashes can you reopen it? Task manager and run new task/process of explorer.exe

Eh right. Forgot to add that.
No it always crashes, no matter how I open it.

**Hyve** · 2012-12-07, 05:53 PM

You changed, downloaded or altered nothing at all?

**The Cat** · 2012-12-07, 05:55 PM

You can run Combofix from bleepingcomputer... it's a pretty powerful tool and should only be used as a last resort, but chances are it'll fix it.

http://www.bleepingcomputer.com/download/combofix/

**JonTargaryen** · 2012-12-07, 05:55 PM

Could it be a new anti-virus or some kind of USB device that causing this?

**Djoron** · 2012-12-07, 06:09 PM

Another thingy I noticed is that Windows takes significantly longer to load. 5-10 seconds of welcome-screen instead of....0.5 or so before.

Originally Posted by Hyve

You changed, downloaded or altered nothing at all?

Nothing that I would expect to do this.
And I altered no hardware or stuff like that.

Now that you mention it, I got the latest nvidia beta driver lately....Gonna see if rolling back to the latest normal version will do something.
*nope, didn't change anything.

Originally Posted by JonTargaryen

Could it be a new anti-virus or some kind of USB device that causing this?

I have no new USB-device attached and it's also been the same when I didn't have me anti-virus up, because the reinstalling broke it and I had to dl it again.

Originally Posted by The Cat

You can run Combofix from bleepingcomputer... it's a pretty powerful tool and should only be used as a last resort, but chances are it'll fix it.

http://www.bleepingcomputer.com/download/combofix/

I'll keep that in mind, if things won't get better.

**Hanto** · 2012-12-07, 06:15 PM

Mine kinda does the same, except it doesn't affect the desktop and such like yours. Mine pops up for a half of a second then closes itself. Firefox was having some issues as well, Chrome seems to be the only stable browser on my system (and I dislike this because Chrome's NoScript-alike is annoying). I do hope you get it fixed!

**Djoron** · 2012-12-08, 07:47 PM

Originally Posted by Hanto

Mine kinda does the same, except it doesn't affect the desktop and such like yours. Mine pops up for a half of a second then closes itself. Firefox was having some issues as well, Chrome seems to be the only stable browser on my system (and I dislike this because Chrome's NoScript-alike is annoying). I do hope you get it fixed!

Hehe, thanks. And good luck with your thingy as well.
eww, Chrome. ;>

**TaintedOne** · 2012-12-08, 09:45 PM

Does explorer still crash if you boot into safe mode ? What motherboard do you have ? And just out of curiosity is the cpu overclocked ?

**Djoron** · 2012-12-08, 10:13 PM

Originally Posted by TaintedOne

Does explorer still crash if you boot into safe mode ? What motherboard do you have ? And just out of curiosity is the cpu overclocked ?

Ok, the explorer works fine in safe mode, I also tried closing and restarting it, it works.

I got an Asus P8Z77-V LE Plus and the CPU isn't overclocked.

**Bismark666** · 2012-12-08, 10:15 PM

open a command prompt cmd.exe and run it as admin then type sfc /scannow

**Djoron** · 2012-12-08, 10:57 PM

Originally Posted by Bismark666

open a command prompt cmd.exe and run it as admin then type sfc /scannow

It didn't find anything.

Also now it tends to RANDOMLY start the explorer.exe properly, after a few seconds to minutes of it not responding and also if I closed it and didn't try to start it or anything.
Windows still takes WAY longer to load than it used to and it throw ~30 windows and notification at me because of things that couldn't be autostarted, but the .exe then works, as I got my desktop and task-bar and so on...

What is happening? o_o

**Bismark666** · 2012-12-08, 11:41 PM

next time explorer crashes straight after it run Eventviewer, just type it in search, it will be the only entry. Then when it loads click Windows Logs > System and there will be an error there for what just happend. Should be the top one and if its not just look at the time stamps. It will have a code atttatched to the error. If you double click on the error it will bring up a report box and give you some more info, post that on here

**Djoron** · 2012-12-09, 12:27 AM

There was no error, but a warning, so I'll just post that instead.

And yes, I scrolled down, the only errors I could find were those produced when Steam couldn't be autostarted once the explorer suddenly started again.
It does that weird delayed starting thing pretty regularly now, btw.
Which is quite annoying due to the tons of windows being opened in the process. :/

Code:

- System 

  - Provider 

   [ Name]  Microsoft-Windows-Kernel-PnP 
   [ Guid]  {9C205A39-1250-487D-ABD7-E831C6290539} 
 
   EventID 219 
 
   Version 0 
 
   Level 3 
 
   Task 212 
 
   Opcode 0 
 
   Keywords 0x8000000000000000 
 
  - TimeCreated 

   [ SystemTime]  2012-12-09T00:12:11.702417900Z 
 
   EventRecordID 7350 
 
   Correlation 
 
  - Execution 

   [ ProcessID]  4 
   [ ThreadID]  60 
 
   Channel System 
 
   Computer Max-PC 
 
  - Security 

   [ UserID]  S-1-5-18 
 

- EventData 

  DriverNameLength 116 
  DriverName WpdBusEnumRoot\UMB\2&37c186b&0&STORAGE#VOLUME#_??_USBSTOR#DISK&VEN_GENERIC&PROD_STORAGE_DEVICE&REV_9451#7&597995E&0# 
  Status 3221226341 
  FailureNameLength 14 
  FailureName \Driver\WUDFRd 
  Version 0

**Elim Garak** · 2012-12-09, 12:58 AM

What USB devices do you have attached to your PC?
What software have you installed a couple of days before the issue?
What kind of regular programs have you installed on your HDD?

That warning indicates that one of the USB devices have incompatible (with win7) drivers - it's just a warning so it shouldn't cause any troubles. But if you have external USB storage and Explorer wants some files from there on start-up - a faulty driver can cause a problem. Or any other USB device that Explorer may treat as Storage while it isn't.
It also can be a problem with your HDD (bad sectors) or SSD (but I doubt it since it worked for a couple of month and SSD's are less prone to damage).

As a test try to remove all USB devices (cept for keyboard if it's USB one) and your HDD (just remove the power cable from it or disable it in BIOS, though I recommend physical disconection) and start your PC with just SSD.
If it works then connect back the HDD - and try again. Continue to add devices until you find the faulty one - if there's any that is.

**Bismark666** · 2012-12-09, 01:05 AM

And what ag666 said above as well. Just narrrowing it down to fix it

**Djoron** · 2012-12-09, 01:45 AM

Originally Posted by ag666

What USB devices do you have attached to your PC?
What software have you installed a couple of days before the issue?
What kind of regular programs have you installed on your HDD?

That warning indicates that one of the USB devices have incompatible (with win7) drivers - it's just a warning so it shouldn't cause any troubles. But if you have external USB storage and Explorer wants some files from there on start-up - a faulty driver can cause a problem. Or any other USB device that Explorer may treat as Storage while it isn't.
It also can be a problem with your HDD (bad sectors) or SSD (but I doubt it since it worked for a couple of month and SSD's are less prone to damage).

As a test try to remove all USB devices (cept for keyboard if it's USB one) and your HDD (just remove the power cable from it or disable it in BIOS, though I recommend physical disconection) and start your PC with just SSD.
If it works then connect back the HDD - and try again. Continue to add devices until you find the faulty one - if there's any that is.

The only USB devices I have attached are my Keyboard (Logitech G105, MW3 edition) and my mouse (Razor Copperhead).
Both aren't new.

New software...I got the latest Nvidia beta driver, but I already tried installing the latest non-beta driver, it didn't change anything.
I can't really think of any other new software I got recently.

The stuff I regularly use from my HDD are: Steam, Waterfox, Winamp and my games, stuff like LoL, Planetside 2, WoW and some others.

I'll try the start-up w/o the HDD and report once I'm done.

---------- Post added 2012-12-09 at 03:02 AM ----------

Alrighty, without the HDD everything works fine, the explorer starts properly and Windows doesn't take ages to load.

**Elim Garak** · 2012-12-09, 03:02 AM

Originally Posted by Djoron

Alrighty, without the HDD everything works fine, the explorer starts properly and Windows doesn't take ages to load.

So explorer tries to get something from HDD and fails. It may be bad sector (run checkdisk via HDD properties) or it may be fragmentation (it takes too much time for Explorer to get everything it wants so it becomes unresponsive, long boot up is purely due to Explorer issue)

P.S. That warning is likely to be irrelevant. I believe it may have something to do with Logitech keyboard - it is known to have driver issues and give that warning. You can test it with other non-logitech, non-media simple keyboard. the warning should disappear.

**Djoron** · 2012-12-09, 01:21 PM

Originally Posted by ag666

So explorer tries to get something from HDD and fails. It may be bad sector (run checkdisk via HDD properties) or it may be fragmentation (it takes too much time for Explorer to get everything it wants so it becomes unresponsive, long boot up is purely due to Explorer issue)

P.S. That warning is likely to be irrelevant. I believe it may have something to do with Logitech keyboard - it is known to have driver issues and give that warning. You can test it with other non-logitech, non-media simple keyboard. the warning should disappear.

I see.
I defragmented it and ran that disk check thingy, but that didn't do anything sadly.

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So...my "explorer.exe" refuses to work.

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