Explorer Keeps Crashing

[newdles]

Ok.. I'm at my wits end here. I've done everything I can possibly think of to cure this issue.

Anyway, here is the problem. I'll be sitting here working on my pc and all of a sudden explorer will just crash. I've got a few corrupt avi files that I've tried for a week to delete and haven't even come close. Renaming or anything nor even safe mode work.

On that note about the avi files, it's a twin file. I had backed it up to another drive thinking that it might have been a possible disk error by some miracle chance. I can't delete the file from either drive now and the odd part is that if I click on that file or do anything with it at all, explorer starts using 100% cpu and I have to end the process. After a while I got tired of that and set things to open explorer in a new process. I still have to end the process manually but at least I don't lose my desktop for a bit.

However, this error with explorer crashing started before the avi files made it to my hard drive. I've just reformatted recently and that seemed to have done absolutely no good. Now that I've reformatted, the crash doesn't even throw back an error to send like it used to.

Just for more information, I'm running Xp Pro with 2 80 gig Maxtors striped in a RAID 0 and one 250 gig Western Digital set to master on regular IDE. If you'd like to see more information about my computer, here is a link that will tell you every detail - http://www.pcpitstop.com/techexpress.asp?id=AB6BLWEBG7US4UVX

Oh, I've also tried disabling Windows system file protection to see if it would allow me to delete and that didn't work. I can't remember the commands to delete the file at the command prompt because the file name has a space in it. It's named 100% Tyler_Corliss.avi and the command del i:\100% Tyler_Corliss.avi doesn't work

Thanks to anyone willing to help.

Edit - By the way, sfc /scannow doesn't work.

[newdles]

Well, the files finally deleted. I used a little program called Sure Delete to do the trick. I'll hope that the explorer crashes stop sometime soon as well

[MCT]

k, ill go from the top down...

Explorer has a bug where it uses 100% Cpu usage , heres a fix

1. Open up regedit

2. Goto HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\SystemFileAssociations\.avi\shellex\PropertyHandler

3. Delete the "Default" value which should be "{87D62D94-71B3-4b9a-9489-5FE6850DC73E}"

Quote obtained from: http://tweakxp.com/display.aspx?id=841

Next, about explorer crashing, this could be a number of things..

have u got the most recent drivers for all your things?

Motherboard (should be chipset & agp drivers)

Video card

Sound Card

NIC (Network Interface Cards or Ethernet cards)

and whatever else hardware u have

after they are all updated, try scanning for viruses & spyware (for a virus scanner i use Nod32

& for spyware i use adaware & spybot then, once im sure im clean, i use spyware blaster 2 protect against further infections http://downloads.com should have those 3 files

make sure your software is up2 date & patched, (including all windows updates)

if u use firefox 0.8 i had some issues with that, try not using it or upgrading 2 0.9 (i havent used 0.9 yet)

& 2 delete files from command line, do this

DEL /Q path\filename.extension (quotes if there is spaces)

Example:

DEL /Q "C:\My Videos\filename.avi"

u can replace drive letters with variables, but we wont get into that

sfc /scannow doesnt work maybe because your XP cd isnt in the drive?

also, navigate to c:\Windows\System32\Dllcache

and make sure theres files there

Note: By default DllCache is a hidden folder & wont be displayed, u need 2 goto folder options & enabled hidden & system files

Also, goto control panel > system , click the error reporting button, then turn off error reporting but notify of critical errors

Edit: I dont think this is caused by your operating system, i think its probly a process u have running in the background that maybe has memory leaks, so try the idea i had about updating all your applications & using windows update

Hope this helps, post back with your progress

[neosapience]

If you want prevent explorer from going crazy when you view avi files, use this registry fix (just paste this into notepad and save as a whatever.REG file, then run it).

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00 

[-HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\SystemFileAssociations\.avi\shellex\PropertyHandler\{87D62D94-71B3-4b9a-9489-5FE6850DC73E}]

As for explorer crashing, there's no way to nail that one down without more information. Does it happen after a certain amount of time, or when using certain programs or what? What was the error message before? Are you having any other problems?

You can try this 'fix', but it may not work -

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\Advanced]
"SeparateProcess"=dword:00000001

[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer]
"DesktopProcess"=dword:00000001

Best o' luck to ya.

[newdles]

Hey thanks for replying guys. Wasn't expecting anyone to do so after I replied that things were looking better about the avi file.

Anyway, I know I don't have a virus. Had a virus one time and that's it. I use online scanners most of the time and run network scans from a different pc that has antivirus installed. As for adware/spyware that isn't a problem either. Generally the only stuff I get there are simple registry entries or cookies all of which don't effect me that much.

Every time I reinstall Windows for any reason I do it all offline. I have every one of the latest drivers for my system and I'm sure of it because right before I start to reinstall the OS, I download all the drivers to the hard drive and then burn them off for offline installation.

Now... the problem with explorer.exe is beyond me. It has no set intervals when it crashes nor does it give any error message. Every error given in the event viewer leads to nothing when I search the web for answers.

MCT - I'm actually pretty good with the command line overall. Just that was one thing I hadn't done in forever and couldn't remember it. I build mysql databases as well all by the command line. That's why it erked me not to be able to do something

Now for Firefox, I don't use that typically. It's a very buggy browser and doesn't have anywhere near the greatest features I've come to love of Myie2. I just don't see the point in detaching myself from that browser to force myself to use a lesser one just because it's compliant with new css.

And yes, I had the Xp cd in the cd rom. I'd have hated myself and never posted back here again if I did something like that out of embarassment The dll cache is fine as well as the error reporting as that's one service I turn off from a list every time I ever install Windows.

Hopefully this thing just pulls a Windows and fixes itself out of the blue.

Thanks guys.

[neosapience]

Random problems are teh suq. Unfortunately, it's a sign of hardware instability. I had a similar problem once and ended up having to ditch my motherboard. Everything was fine after I put the new one in. Maybe you should do some memory testing and update your BIOS? Just a thought.

Best o' luck to ya.