Command Prompt with Explorer Stopped

Cheemag · 15 Dec 2016 at 16:26

Hello again,

I have to enter a series of commands to fix an icon black overlay problem.

The second command stops Windows Explorer.

How do I execute the third command with Explorer stopped? Is there a way to get the command prompt back with Explorer stopped?

Prophet · 15 Dec 2016 at 16:37

Ctrl-Alt-Del
Task manager
file>run a new task>cmd

bledd · 15 Dec 2016 at 17:06

What are the commands? This could be easily scripted into a bat file, list them here and I'll someone will write it into one for you

So you can just double click it to run it.

What is the problem you're having? Sometimes a new user account can fix issues like this.

Cheemag · 16 Dec 2016 at 11:16

bledd said:
What are the commands? This could be easily scripted into a bat file, list them here and I'll someone will write it into one for you

So you can just double click it to run it.

What is the problem you're having? Sometimes a new user account can fix issues like this.

Hello and Thanks for response.

Commands are these:
ie4uinit.exe -ClearIconCache
taskkill /IM explorer.exe /F
DEL "%localappdata%\IconCache.db" /A
DEL "%localappdata%\Microsoft\Windows\Explorer\iconcache*" /A
shutdown /r /f /t 00

The icons problem is desktop icons all have black overlays. I have a batch file which restores them but it doesn't survive a reboot. I suspect the batch file does pretty much the same as the series of commands above does ...

There is no IconCache.db file on the machine. However Windows seems to be able to restore the icons, however temporarily, so they must be available somewhere on the system ...

I still can't understand how you can have a command prompt with Explorer stopped, as would be required to execute the list of commands above.

I don't have user accounts, I run the machine as admin.

joey1211 · 16 Dec 2016 at 11:17

Cheemag said:
I run the machine as admin.

skyripper · 16 Dec 2016 at 11:17

Command Prompt (cmd.exe) is a separate program from Explorer.exe.

skyripper · 16 Dec 2016 at 11:19

Also, why shutdown and reboot after this?
Could you not just restart Explorer.exe ?

Cheemag · 16 Dec 2016 at 11:19

Prophet said:
Ctrl-Alt-Del
Task manager
file>run a new task>cmd

That may be, but how do you get task manager or anything else to run without Explorer? All you, or at least I, have is a screen with the background and nothing else !

Prophet · 16 Dec 2016 at 11:24

Cheemag said:
That may be, but how do you get task manager or anything else to run without Explorer? All you, or at least I, have is a screen with the background and nothing else !

I've done this more times than I can remember over the years when explorer has crashed leaving just a blue screen.

Semple · 16 Dec 2016 at 11:24

As Skyripper says, cmdprompt is a separate process to explorer.exe so when you kill off the explorer.exe process, cmdprompt should still be alive - might take a couple of seconds for it to reload the GUI's of all running processes.

You can get to task manager with a Ctrl+Alt+Del, this will work (NMI) regardless of whether the explorer.exe process is running or not.

skyripper · 16 Dec 2016 at 11:26

Cheemag said:
That may be, but how do you get task manager or anything else to run without Explorer? All you, or at least I, have is a screen with the background and nothing else !

Try it?

joey1211 · 16 Dec 2016 at 11:52

Ctrl+Alt+Esc is a quicker method of reaching Task Manager

Orcvader · 16 Dec 2016 at 12:19

Cheemag said:
shutdown /r /f /t 00

Is this restarting the PC with forcing all applications to quit?

As for the other bat file that restores after the restart, have you tried creating a shortcut to it and putting it in here?:

Code:

C:\Users\[name]\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\Windows\Start Menu\Programs\Startup

Have you got a screenshot of the black overlay problem?

On the other hand I have this bat file to restart explorer.exe when it was bugging out for me back in Windows 7:

Code:

taskkill /f /im explorer.exe
start explorer.exe

Cheemag · 16 Dec 2016 at 13:04

Semple said:
As Skyripper says, cmdprompt is a separate process to explorer.exe so when you kill off the explorer.exe process, cmdprompt should still be alive - might take a couple of seconds for it to reload the GUI's of all running processes.

You can get to task manager with a Ctrl+Alt+Del, this will work (NMI) regardless of whether the explorer.exe process is running or not.

Right. Thanks. Now it's clear. CtrlAltDel gives you Task Manager - I thought that made the machine reboot ...

I'll try it at boot tomorrow.

Sp00n · 16 Dec 2016 at 13:16

Cheemag said:
That may be, but how do you get task manager or anything else to run without Explorer? All you, or at least I, have is a screen with the background and nothing else !

It's separate, also ctrl+shift+esc to just open task manager directly.

Cheemag · 16 Dec 2016 at 13:18

Orcvader said:
Is this restarting the PC with forcing all applications to quit?

No only stops Explorer.

Code:
As for the other bat file that restores after the restart, have you tried creating a shortcut to it and putting it in here?:

Code:

C:\Users\[name]\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\Windows\Start Menu\Programs\Startup

I did used to put it Startup but find it just as easy to run it from the command prompt or do a Bat2Exe and put it in Startup (when I can remember to do it).

Have you got a screenshot of the black overlay problem?

Well, if you like, but different forums have been trying to fix this problem for me without success for over a year now, on and off !

Code:
On the other hand I have this bat file to restart explorer.exe when it was bugging out for me back in Windows 7:

Code:

taskkill /f /im explorer.exe start explorer.exe

That's what's basically in the batch file I use. The problem is that, although the batch file recovers the icons, they don't survive through the next reboot. This is the .bat file:

Code:

echo Please Wait ...
taskkill /f /im explorer.exe
timeout 2 /nobreak>nul
CD /d %userprofile%\AppData\Local
DEL iconCache.db /a
timeout 2 /nobreak>nul
start explorer.exe
exit

There's no IconCache.db file in that directory after the .bat is run and the icons are restored.

Prophet · 16 Dec 2016 at 15:41

Cheemag said:
Right. Thanks. Now it's clear. CtrlAltDel gives you Task Manager - I thought that made the machine reboot ...

I'll try it at boot tomorrow.

We got there in the end