explorer.exe shuts down repeatedly

[Bumdark 3]

Hey y'all.

My PC used to be my pride, but now it's just about the death of me. Here's the problem(s).

First off, explorer.exe keeps crashing again and again, and never for any ***** reason. It actually seems to target certain file paths, and then jams them so I can never enter those files or folders again. I try to enter my file/folder, pause a bit, an error (explorer.exe has encountered an error and must shut down. Sorry for any inconvenience even though we don't give a *****, or we would program our OS's a helluva lot better) appears. I choose to send the error report thingy, then explorer.exe shuts down altogether, and reinitiates after a few seconds of staring at a blank background image.

This doesn't only happen with explorer.exe, but several other programs. Noticably, whenever I try to use Dreamweaver 8's Help menus, same thing happens, but with Dreamweaver 8.exe instead of Explorer.exe.

Happening to anyone else? Or is this, once again, unique to my brand of faulty computors?

PC specs:

CPU: Pentium IV 2,99Ghz

RAM: 1512MB/Mo DDR

OS: Windows XP Home SP2, all available updates installed

Patience: wearing thin

Please help, anyone... I'm truly getting desperate here.

PY

[IDS2 3,344]

Hmm...check tas manager. EXPLORER.EXE is quite a large process compared to the others. The only time it happens to me is when I turn on my comp...but it just happens randomly? Try to shut down the unecessary processes. See if it helps.

[Poetic 0]

Here's a good looking site I came across:

http://www.helpwithwindows.com/techfiles/explorer-crashes.html

It sounds like you may have the first problem addressed (3rd party shell crashing), but it could also be a virus or spyware causing the problem.

[A Nonny Moose 8,261]

i truly think that if program crashes are becoming regular, something has mashed your O/S.  How recently have you run a virus scan to completion?  Adware?  Malware?

If you can't find anything, try a repair on your O/S, or at least run the File System Checker.  Open the run box and type FSC and press enter.  You will need your windows installation disk.

[Craig-Abcvs 1,595]

I was having a big problem with IE7 about a month ago...  in fact the whole PC was driving me nuts - everything was really slow and lots of crashes.

I run XP.

I have a logitech webcam and apparently it does not play well with IE7 ... well that's what microsoft said in the error report .... but they are unlikely to blame their own product.

I am not currently using the web cam....  but may try it again sometime.

I also downloaded "Registry Fix" from the internet ... it found 1000+ errors the first time I ran it and usually finds about 100 errors if I run it about once or twice a week now...  unfortunately you do have to pay for it.  Things that actually work are not usually free.

I upgraded my ram to 1.5GB [originally 512mb] because my PC was so painfully slow .... but I see you have that already.  It has made a huge difference for my PC.

Up to date anti virus and anti spyware programs are essential ... they need to update everytime you log on to your computer...  make sure they are set to do a full scan of your hard drive at least once a week - my anti-virus takes over 1 hour to scan the hard drive completely, but you can carry on doing other things while it does.

If you are using an anti-virus program that came bundled with the computer (that you never got a subscription for) or you got a disk from somewhere else, and and it never updates or you dont have a current subscription - then I suggest it is worse than useless.  May as well not have it at all.

Again you have to pay for a current subscription, but free or copied generally means ineffective.

Try the defraging and disk cleanup tools - which you can find in Start>all programs>accessories>system tools.

I am not sure what exactly fixed my problem the other week but between the registery fix program, disconnecting the webcam, running regular up to date antivirus and anti spyware full disk scans, and upgrading my RAM the problem now seems to be solved.

A PC is like a car - you have to maintain and service it regularly, to acheive peak performance.  Worth the cost if it saves the frustration.

Craig

[coolotter88 2]

evacuate and nuke with DBAN

[screamingman12 30]

Why is everyone seeming to use IE7? it sucks. Opera or Firefox work better. But yeah, something probably hit your machine, I would do a virus scan.