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
    2015-11-04T22:03:11+00:00

    I had the same problem. This solution works perfectly. Don't need to uninstall thirdparty shellscripts.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LWtH6ZtlSm8

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  2. Anonymous
    2015-10-29T04:23:58+00:00

    I just fixed my problem by using the suggested program ShellExView.  When you use the program, there are 12 columns, each with a header/title at the top, look for the one that says "Microsoft", this column indicates if the extension is made by Microsoft or not (YES means made by Microsoft -- NO means third-party extension).

    All I did was click on the "Microsoft" column header (the very top/title) so that all of the NO's show up at the top of the list (a NO is also a slight reddish color).  then highlighted all of the NO's, right-clicked and chose "Disable Selected Items".

    Went to my desktop screen, right-clicked and chose an option and it worked, didn't crash.  Right-clicked on a file to be sure and still works perfectly again.  Glad to have full functionality back!  

    I didn't bother going through all of my NO's one-at-a-time as there are 47 of them, lol.  figured if i was able to get by without them for a year, no need to bother with them at all.   Thanks for the help Ramesh!

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  3. Anonymous
    2015-09-26T16:18:29+00:00

    "This webpage is not available"

    Why are problems like this still happening in Windows 7 in 2015?  This was clearly a problem 6 years ago, and remains a problem even now that W7 has been superceded.  Twice.

    It's all good and well suggesting ShellExView to solve the problem, but I did that and I have no idea what I'm looking at.  I have no idea what I'm doing, and the page directed to here is no longer available.

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  4. Anonymous
    2015-09-11T21:59:56+00:00

    I'm having exactly the same problem, and there are NO "third-party" shell extensions on the machine....strictly and only what Dell installed when it loaded Windows 10 on the machine.  I'm running it exactly as received.

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