Windows 7 64 Bit Pro Explorer (explorer.exe) keeps crashing and restarting randomly.

Anonymous
2009-12-02T00:18:42+00:00

Windows 7 64 Bit Pro Explorer (explorer.exe) keeps crashing and restarting randomly. This happens several times a day and its quite annoying. Sometimes happens when I search for files, sometimes when I click on an Program Icon, Sometimes when I open a folder and sometimes for no apparent reason.

My Install was a Clean Install and I have had this issues from day 1.

I have tried several “solutions” including

  • Copying Explorer.exe from the Wow64 folder to System32 folder,
  • fixing the SQM issue,
  • Changing registry settings,
  • Running sfc,
  • Defragging my HDs
  • Scanning for Viruses and Malware (using Multiple fully updated AV programs).
  • Updating Windows and Drivers
  • etc. etc.

Nothing seems to work.  I don't want to reinstall the entire OS if I will have these problems again. Please Help!

Thanks.

K. Chahal

Windows for home | Previous Windows versions | Windows update

Locked Question. This question was migrated from the Microsoft Support Community. You can vote on whether it's helpful, but you can't add comments or replies or follow the question.

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Anonymous
2009-12-28T23:11:29+00:00

You have a Heap Corruption in Shell32.dll

Please run ShellExView and disable all Shellextension which are NOT from Micrososoft. Does the crash still occur? If not, enable the extension successively until you find the one which crahes the explorer.

André

"A programmer is just a tool which converts caffeine into code" CLIP- Stellvertreter http://www.winvistaside.de/

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Anonymous
2009-12-29T01:57:29+00:00

A not-dissimilar situation has shown up in a couple different places, related to the nVidia M series video adapters. Apparently they have a mechanism whereby they flip in and out of high-performance mode depending on what's being demanded by currently running software. The problem is that in certain situations this switch can happen several times within a few milliseconds and create problems for Windows. (I've only seen this come up in relation to 64-bit versions.) The fix, copied from an OCZ forum, came courtesy of Winston Smith:

Update Driver

  1. Download and install the latest NVIDIA driver from here .

RivaTuner

  1. Download and install RivaTuner from here .

Magic

  1. Open RivaTuner and switch to the "Power User" tab.
  2. Expand the "RivaTuner\NVIDIA\Overclocking" Tree.
  3. Set "EnablePerfLevelForcing" to 1.
  4. Switch to the "Main" tab.
  5. Under "Driver settings" click on the small arrow left to "Customize..." and choose the first icon "System settings".
  6. Set "Force constant performance level" to either "low power 3D" (suffient for 2D audio work) or "performance 3D" (used for 3D gaming).
  7. Click OK and let the computer restart.

I would start with step 1, update the driver, then if the problem persists download RivaTuner and continue from there.

This even handles a problem of Windows 7 x64 (or Vista x64) freezing completely under certain circumstances on the MacBook.

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  1. Anonymous
    2010-11-20T23:50:56+00:00

    Thank you for the quick response Andre. I will make the changes and upload the new dumps.

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  2. Anonymous
    2010-11-20T17:17:27+00:00

    I too am experiencing frequent Explorer.exe crashes.

    You have a heap corruption:

    To see more about the heap corruption, open regedit.exe and go to

    HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\Windows Error Reporting\LocalDumps\Explorer.exe,

    create a new DWORD DumpType and set the value to 2 .

    The WER service now generates a huger dump. Zip the new dumps and share them.

    André

    "A programmer is just a tool which converts caffeine into code" CLIP- Stellvertreter http://www.winvistaside.de/

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  3. Anonymous
    2010-11-20T17:10:13+00:00

    http://cid-03bded71f31a1415.office.live.com/browse.aspx/.Documents/explorer%5E_dumps?uc=2

    Andre,

    Ive been having the explorer crash symptoms for 2-3 days now and I haven't been able to get it to stop.

    Problem Event Name: APPCRASH

    Application Name: Explorer.EXE

    Application Version: 6.1.7600.16450

    Application Timestamp: 4aebab8d

    Fault Module Name: vrfcore.dll

    Fault Module Version: 4.1.1078.0

    I can see that you have the Application Verifier enabled. Have you done this yourself?

    You have an access violation when the Explorer shows tooltips.

    sfc was able to repair the Explroer.exe:

    Repairing corrupted file [ml:520{260},l:28{14}]"??\C:\Windows"[l:24{12}]"explorer.exe" from store

    Could not reproject corrupted file [ml:520{260},l:46{23}]"??\C:\Windows\System32"[l:20{10}]"tcpmon.ini"; source file in store is also corrupted

    Repairing corrupted file [ml:48{24},l:46{23}]"??\C:\Windows\SysWOW64"[l:22{11}]"wininit.exe" from store

    only the ini is damaged.

    To see more about the Explorer crash, open regedit.exe and go to

    HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\Windows Error Reporting\LocalDumps\Explorer.exe,

    create a new DWORD DumpType and set the value to 2 .

    The WER service now generates a huger dump. Zip the new dumps and share them.

    André

    "A programmer is just a tool which converts caffeine into code" CLIP- Stellvertreter http://www.winvistaside.de/

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