windows explorer crashes on right click

Anonymous
2009-03-30T20:59:37+00:00

Whenever I right click on a file in Windows Explorer I get a message that Windows Explorer has stopped working and then it shuts downto the desktop.  I am running Windows Vista Home Premium on a Gateway GT5228. It has 2 GB of ram and 140GB unused on the hard drive.  I have been running Vista for about a year and the problem just started about a week ago.  I hope somebody has a suggestion because at the moment I can't delete or rename anything.  I have run an antivirus and antispyware programs and have found nothing.  Any ideas will be greatly appreaciated.

Windows for home | Previous Windows versions | Accessibility

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Ramesh 181.2K Reputation points Volunteer Moderator
2009-03-30T21:40:54+00:00

Hi ranma100,

Right-click crashes are caused by third-party shell extensions. You may use the excellent ShellExView tool to isolate the problem. For more information, see "Method 2" in article Right-click is slow or weird behavior caused by context menu handlers.

Ramesh Srinivasan, Microsoft MVP [Windows Desktop Experience]

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  1. Anonymous
    2013-08-02T06:24:31+00:00

    Thanks Ramesh, ShellExView works great.  Found the offender easily it was in the name:

    "SpyBotSearch and Destroy Explorer Integration"

    Rex

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  2. Anonymous
    2013-06-20T05:41:37+00:00

    I found that shellex was not specific enough to figure out the problem. After disabling every single non microsoft entry there was no improvement.

    I found a better way of figuring out my problem. I downloaded WhatIsHang(also made by shellex) and i fired this up while my context menu was hanging.

    It showed that it was picasa3 which is not installed on my pc anymore was causing the hang. I fixed the problem by installing picasa3 again and then uninstalling it. now my context menu works again.

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  3. Anonymous
    2013-05-27T17:56:01+00:00

    This worked for me to Ramesh, thanks so much for your help!  I was pulling my hair out over this...so annoying!

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  4. Anonymous
    2013-05-01T20:32:38+00:00

    All right its been a while since the last post but i have to write another solution here.

    I had the problem that explorer.exe was crashing once i right-clicked the desktop.

    Its because of Nvidia. What you have to do is to download ShellExView, run it.

    Now you see a long list of exstensions. Scroll down to "NVIDIA CPL Context Menu Extension", right click it and select "Disable". Now the problem is fixed :)

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