Dave-H Posted July 16, 2009 Share Posted July 16, 2009 (edited) An annoying problem has reared its head with my Windows Explorer.I became aware that some folders were freezing the Explorer when they were selected.It was a very long time (about 30 seconds) before all the icons were displayed correctly, i.e. the files' proper icons replaced the generic Windows icons.The files in the folders in question were nearly all .exe installation files.While the icons are trying to load, Explorer becomes unresponsive, and if I go to another folder, I just get an empty right hand pane, which doesn't populate until after a long delay (presumably when the other folder's icons have finally finished loading.) If I try to close the window, either nothing happens or I get the good old "this program is not responding" dialogue through which I can force a shutdown.I have narrowed the problem down to being caused by just a few files, all of which, when opened in the Gconvert icon editor, show as having "true colors and alpha (32-bit)" icons.I have put one of them in a folder by itself as a test, and if I select that folder in Explorer, it does indeed take about 30 seconds for the file's proper icon to display, during which time Explorer is not responding, and the hard disk is rattling.Task Manager shows that "system" is using 50% CPU, which immediately drops to zero when the icon displays.I've done a lot of web research on this, but can't find any references anywhere to this specific problem, or any possible causes.What's really annoying is that Windows 98SE Explorer (dual boot system) displays these icons instantly!Anyone any ideas what's happening here?It certainly hasn't always been like this, but as is often the case with this sort of thing, I wasn't actually aware of the problem until it was impossible to pin down what change I could have made to the system to cause it!I have KDW installed, but uninstalling it makes no difference.I tried installing Revolutions Pack, as that allows 32 bit icons to display properly in Windows 2000, and that made no difference to the problem either.Thanks, Dave. Edited July 16, 2009 by Dave-H Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Colonel O'Neill Posted July 17, 2009 Share Posted July 17, 2009 Do the files have 256x256 sized icons in them? Windows 2000 (and XP) don't seem to like that format.Also, did you try Daedalus? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dave-H Posted July 17, 2009 Author Share Posted July 17, 2009 Thanks.48x48 seems to be the largest icons they contain.I haven't tried Daedalus, but I will have a look at it.I don't think this problem is related to not having any enhancements in place to enable Windows 2000 to display 32 bit icons. I only installed Revolutions Pack to see if it would help this problem (which it didn't).The icons always displayed properly before the fault appeared, although presumably not as well as they could have done with RP or Daedalus installed. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dave-H Posted July 18, 2009 Author Share Posted July 18, 2009 Just an update.I uninstalled Revolutions Pack so I could try out Daedalus.Wasn't too impressed with its stability I have to say, although it certainly did as good a job making the icons look nicer as RP did!I got a lot of spontaneous Explorer restarts with it on my system, also Internet Explorer kept crashing and having to be manually restarted too.Also an error box with "Runtime Error 216 at 00001A18" in it kept popping up all the time.I've now uninstalled Daedalus and RP.Icon problem still there! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Colonel O'Neill Posted July 20, 2009 Share Posted July 20, 2009 Daedalus is not as stable as RP, (nor does it get ico files).Does it occur if you use a different version of explorer.exe? Perhaps go to/back to a different version of explorer.exe? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dave-H Posted July 20, 2009 Author Share Posted July 20, 2009 Daedalus is not as stable as RP, (nor does it get ico files).Does it occur if you use a different version of explorer.exe? Perhaps go to/back to a different version of explorer.exe?Thanks again Colonel! My version of explorer.exe is 5.0.3700.6690.It's the version modified for 256 colour icons in the taskbar.I've been using it for years, and it's never caused any problems.I still have the original un-modified version backed up, and I've already tried substituting it back in place of the modified version, and it made no difference to the problem. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Colonel O'Neill Posted July 22, 2009 Share Posted July 22, 2009 I dunno... Maybe try another shell (xplorer2 lite?)If other shells show the same behavior, then maybe it's the icon drawing API's. That might have been caused by KDW not unreplacing a file somewhere... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dave-H Posted July 22, 2009 Author Share Posted July 22, 2009 Do you (or anyone else) know which system dll contains the "icon drawing APIs"?I'm pretty sure that when I uninstalled KDW (I've put it back now as several things I use need it) it did clean up after itself OK and restored all the system files correctly.I was certainly using KDW for ages before this problem appeared, but it could have crept in on a version update of course. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Colonel O'Neill Posted July 22, 2009 Share Posted July 22, 2009 I honestly don't know which ones, but I'd say it's in KERNEL32 or USER32... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dave-H Posted July 24, 2009 Author Share Posted July 24, 2009 I honestly don't know which ones, but I'd say it's in KERNEL32 or USER32...I was afraid you'd say that!Anyway, until very recently (after this problem appeared) I wasn't using the KDW user32.dll anyway, as it caused problems with some other programs.I have been using kernel32.dll from KDW, but I'm sure it restored the original correctly when i uninstalled it and the problem didn't go away.One thing I have just checked, and should have done ages ago, is that the problem does not occur in safe mode.Safe mode uses 640x480 resolution with only 16 colours of course, so maybe it is a video driver problem after all, although I haven't changed my video driver for a few years!Unfortunately, in normal mode, although I can switch down to 640x480 I can't go below 256 colours to test this with exactly the same settings as in safe mode. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dave-H Posted July 28, 2009 Author Share Posted July 28, 2009 Finally found what's causing the problem, but not found the actual reason for it! It's my virus scanner!I use a (very old) anti-virus program from Trend, PC-cillin 2002.Like most it has a "real-time scan" function, and it was that which was causing the problem.If I switch it off, everything returns to normal.Fortunately you can set it to ignore particular files or folders, so I can just exclude the problem ones from being scanned. All I want to know now is why it has suddenly started doing this when I've been using it for years without any problem! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts
Create an account or sign in to comment
You need to be a member in order to leave a comment
Create an account
Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!
Register a new accountSign in
Already have an account? Sign in here.
Sign In Now