Critical Vista x64 Explorer crash issue...

Kainz · 8 Apr 2008 at 22:13

Right, this is one that I just can't figure out...yet.

Last friday I installed x64, again. I've had issues with this OS from the start. Mainly because it drove two of my firewire externals mad even post SP1, so I ended up switching those to USB, which solved things.

Anyway, on Sunday x64 began getting on my nerves. At this point I was still installing apps to bring it up to scratch. Now here's the issue. After a fresh boot, if I right click any icon on the desktop, I get the 'aero round hourglass' icon appearing, and then Explorer.exe locks up and I can see the hard disk light flashing for utterly ages - I have no idea what it's doing but I end up having to restart explorer. I just replicated it again by right clicking a PDF on the desktop as I write this. Once I restart explorer, things are fine.

I can't go on like this because everytime explorer crashes, it has to re-cache all the media thumbnails on my rig when I view them in explorer. The OS is just unusable in this current condition.

I've got two choices here:

1. Reinstall yet again. This takes ages compared to x32 because it has miles more updates post install, and then comes SP1.

2. Search forums like crazy until I find a way to resolve it. Given the amount of explorer.exe issues that must be out there, thats the last thing I want to do.

Kainz · 8 Apr 2008 at 22:24

Doing a bit of reading and the chaps below have the same issue too...
http://www.tomrafteryit.net/vista-explorer-crash/

andshrew · 9 Apr 2008 at 08:53

Kainz said:
1. Reinstall yet again. This takes ages compared to x32 because it has miles more updates post install, and then comes SP1.

Surely all you should have to install is x64 then SP1 - thats the entire point of Service Packs, they contain all previously released updates.

As for the problem, when did it start to happen? After you installed a specific application, update or driver etc? Is it all files on the desktop which cause it or just a specific one?

Kainz · 9 Apr 2008 at 09:20

Thats true in regards to the service pack I guess. Been so long since I messed with those...Time wise I guess it'll still take as long give or take. The crash happens when I click on any icon on my desktop, be it a pdf, a folder or even the control panel icon.

Anyway, I did some reading up on my issue last night. It seems that a lot of people get this issue even on XP. It's related to shell extensions that various applications install onto the right click context menu. Some extensions aren't written to well and can cause the context menu to appear really slowly. I downloaded a small app that lets me see all my extensions as well as enable/disable them, however that had no effect.

This morning I lost my rag and restored an image of Vista x32, which I did just before I installed x64, so I essentially had my old system back. Here's the weird bit - the same thing happened when I right click an icon on the desktop lol

I then restored an image of x64 just after SP1 was applied (with no apps installed) and all was fine. So I think I need to investigate this issue deeper when I get home. I'm already considering a chkdsk on my OS hard disk as one precaution.