Explorer.exe, please help!

[xonim]

When windows starts it freezes to the desktop. I can see all of my icons and the start menu but when I move the mouse pointer over it I get an hourglass. Cannot click on any of the icons. Can use task manager to end process explorer.exe and then restart it returning windows to normal. If I disable or set windows firewall/internet connection sharing to manual windows starts normally, but I get that irratating bubble telling me the firewall is off. I can also then start this service without any problems. I can't understand this. I have searched the web and forums for an answer, but nobody can help me, NOT even microsoft, HP, Mecer...etc. I have this problem on six of my PC's some of them on xp pro and some on xp home. This only occurs after sp2 is installed.

I will even be happy if someone can tell me how to start that service via the registry. I have tried to start it in HKLM/Run but it did nothing.

Please, please help.

[hougtimo]

Ive had the same problem as you. I found if i slipstreamed SP2 into the installation files and did a reinstall i worked perfectly, it just seems to be if you install SP2 after windows is installed. In my case it was on 1200 computers which I am now network manager for (local buisness), so thats what i would reccomend doing, but if any1 knows another way around it, then please let us know. BTW, i noticed you said you had run HP about it, are they HP computers? i ask this because all of the ones it happend on here were on contract from HP-education UK.

thnks

tim

[eyeball]

Hi

first try seeing what is running at start up (type msconfig at run) and disable what isnt needed,

the balloon tips can be disabled there is a registry hack or a .vbs script on the net somewhere,

also check that your windows aer fully up to date (although i assume they already are )

hopefully one of these sugestions will help you

thanks

[cluberti]

What applications did you install? Explorer.exe does allow third-party code to run in it's process, so seeing what is running within explorer.exe would help in determining what thread exactly is in a WAIT state (which would cause the mouse icon to go to an hourglass). If you download/unzip Process Explorer from www.sysinternals.com, reboot, then run process explorer from the task manager the next time you reboot and the system hangs, you should be able to go into the details of the explorer.exe process and see what thread or application running in that process is hung.

[xonim]

Thanks for all the replies.

Unfortunatelly I have already tried slipstreaming sp2 and on the newer pc's the win xp cd's are sp2 cd's. The strange thing is that no software is installed, except for all of the updates.

Most of the pc's are HP, but I have the same problem on one Mecer and many machines that I built myself.

Using msconfig, disabling windows firewall & ICS allows the pc's to boot normally. I have already disabled the ballon tips, but the fact is that using win firewall makes my life much easier as we are using a wireless network and the programs we need to run makes a lot more work for me when using other firewalls.

I am busy downloading process explorer, thanks for the tip I will let you guys know if it helps.

[xonim]

I downloaded process explorer, set win firewall/ICS back to automatic and rebooted. Just as expected windows crashed at desktop. I ran process explorer only to find that explorer.exe had not even processed any applications yet, and closing all the threads running by explorer had no effect. Using it the same as taskmgr I can close explorer.exe and restart it, bringing the pc back to normal and only then does explorer.exe run all of my other threads and applications (drivers). Maybe I am not using process explorer correctly. If you could please tell me what I should be doing with it.

Thanks.

[cluberti]

If you can't see what's starting, consider downloading autoruns (from the sysinternals site as well) and run it. You will see EVERYTHING that is starting with your PC - hide all of the Microsoft entries and see what's left. If you uncheck everything non-Microsoft and reboot, does explorer.exe start up?

[xonim]

I downloaded autoruns, hid all microsoft objects, and unchecked all the boxes. This had no effect. I then started to play around with everything and eventually turned off the shared access service (i.e. windows firewall and internet connection sharing) and this is the only thing that works. That brings me back to my first conclusion that this service is in conflict with explorer.exe, but I don't understand why.

Have you got any other suggestions?

I must be doing something wrong, how can I be one of the only people that has this problem. I am starting to think that I am the problem and not sp2. Could this be related to the way I am setting up all the pc's. Maybe my language settings (English, SA) or my timeline (Harare, Pretoria) as these are the only things that I do differently to everyone else. It can't be hardware or driver related, as I get the same problem on completely different machines and I have tried using both the original drivers and the latest downloaded drivers. I have even tried doing fully unattended installs with integrated drivers.

Another thing that confuses me is that this problem only occurs when sp2 is slipstreamed or installed on win xp sp1 machines, or on win xp sp2 machines when I install the windows updates.

I think I am going to loose this battle.

[colinbate]

Perhaps you have a corrupt copy of SP2 have you tried redownloading SP2.

Regards

Colin Bate

Edited November 17, 2005 by colinbate