Whenever I use the open/save dialog, the application freezes and I have to terminate it

Anonymous
2014-12-13T03:13:22+00:00

I've researched this for a month before posting this. I have tried all solutions and I'm still having this problem.

Half the time when I do something with an application that brings up the Explorer dialog such as Open, Save, Save As etc. the application freezes and I have no choice but to terminate it. This happened most frequently with a video editor I used, sometimes after spending an hour editing the video all my progress is lost because I had to terminate the frozen app. This happens with Firefox, this happens with just about every app that summons the Open/Save Explorer dialog.

So far I have tried:

Using a different/default theme since I use a custom one. This appeared to solve the problem for the first few minutes as my video editor stopped freezing when clicking Open or Save video file. But then it froze on the 5th instance or so.

Deleting the ComDlg32 registry key. Sometimes this helps temporarily, sometimes it doesn't. Clearly useless.

Verifying my comdlg32.dll was not corrupt (sfc /scannow). It wasn't corrupt.

Unchecking "Launch folder windows in a separate process" in Folder Options in the Control Panel. This helped the most. Now the explorer dialog freezes only 10% of the time instead of 50%. But obviously the problem still persists so my question is WHY?

I've run into numerous problems as I upgraded to Windows 7 from XP. Not to say I never had issues on XP but at least basic things like this functioned. Basic usability is a frequent problem now since I upgraded with all kinds of random instances of design backwardsness as if I've downgraded.

Windows for home | Previous Windows versions | Files, folders, and storage

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  1. Anonymous
    2014-12-26T04:23:48+00:00

    Hi, 

    Thank you for your reply.

    I am glad to know that issue is not persisting on different user account. It indicates your previous user account has been corrupted, you can copy the files from previous user account to new user account. I suggest you to refer to the section "copy files to the new user profile" from the Microsoft article below:

    http://windows.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/fix-corrupted-user-profile#1TC=windows-7

    Let us know if you need any more assistance with Windows 7.

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  2. Anonymous
    2014-12-25T19:15:57+00:00

    I am not 100% sure but I am convinced the issue does not persist on a different user account. The open/save dialog did not freeze even once as of yet on the new account.

    I want to fix this issue on my problematic user account though, I hope I don't have to make a new one.

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  3. Anonymous
    2014-12-25T06:56:58+00:00

    Hi,

    Thank you for your reply.

    If it works fine with different user name and password  then you don't have to use DISM command. I would like to confirm whether issue persists on different user account or not. 

    Let us know the status so that we can proceed with the next step of action.

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  4. Anonymous
    2014-12-25T06:21:06+00:00

    "Different versions of Windows PC" do you mean different versions of Windows? I don't see why the PC is relevant. Are you telling me I have a hardware problem?

    If you mean what I think you mean and only refer to the OS, then that thread you linked me to states

    "3) ".../CheckHealth, /ScanHealth, /RestoreHealth, /Source, and /LimitAccess can’t be used when servicing a version of Windows that is earlier than Windows 8 or Windows Server 2012 images" "

    I am using Windows 7, Windows 7 is earlier than Windows 8 or Windows Server 2012 images. /RestoreHealth was one of those options you instructed me to use. And this flat out claims that this option is not supported in Windows 7.

    I looked throughout the entire thread. Point me to whatever post contains the solution because I can't see it. A google search suggested Windows Module Installer service being disabled causes this error. I enabled mine and still got the same error.

    I'll follow your instructions on recovering corrupted user profiles after you clarify whether or not I should use the DISM command you suggested earlier.

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  5. Anonymous
    2014-12-25T01:26:06+00:00

    Hi,

    Thank you for your reply.

    As I provided the thread on my previous post which explains how to perform DISM in different versions of Windows PC. You will also find three different threads which explains how to prevent error 87 and perform DISM in Windows 7. I will suggest you to go through the thread conversation and also check the spacing while typing the DISM command.

    I would also like to confirm as you created different user account in Windows 7, which seems to be working. I suggest you to recover the corrupted user profile. Your user profile is a collection of settings that make the computer look and work the way you want it to. It contains your settings for desktop backgrounds, screen savers, pointer preferences, sound settings, and other features.

    I suggest you to follow this Microsoft article below which explains how to recover corrupted user profile:

    http://windows.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/fix-corrupted-user-profile#1TC=windows-7

    Let us know the status of the issue.

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