Windows 11 zipped folders / files immediately crashes File Explorer

Anonymous
2022-01-24T04:24:45+00:00

My Dell laptop was previously Windows 10, now 11. When I right click any zipped folder, it immediately crashes Windows Explorer, but then everything comes back. I can't unzip any zipped file at all - doesn't seem to matter what size it is.

I was trying to use the built-in unzipper utility in Windows, and when that didn't work I tried a couple 3rd party apps, including WinZip. Nothing works; they all crash, and they crash on ANY zipped file I have.

And by the way if I try to ZIP any set of files - even just 3 little word files, it does the same thing. The screen flashes, all my icons go away for a second. Then things come back, but nothing will zip or unzip.

thanks if you have any ideas!

Christine

Windows for home | Windows 11 | Performance and system failures

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  1. Anonymous
    2023-12-17T20:14:41+00:00

    As has been shared in earlier strings, downloading a safe copy of the ShellExView utility is the first step. You run the program, and look for red shaded extentions, which appear to be most often adobe CS4 related. You disable these extensions, and the problems should be fixed.

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  2. Anonymous
    2023-05-24T13:51:27+00:00

    I used ShellExView by NirSoft to find all shell extensions in my computer.

    I listed the shells by company, and discovered one called PTCShellEx Class. I used ShellExView to disable it, and immediately File Explorer no longer crashes when I try to open a zip file after finding the zip file with File Explorer.

    By the way, before I disabled the above noted shell, the only way that I could open a zip file was to navigate to the zip file using Winzip and then opening it directly via Winzip. You may have other shells than the one I found, so if you do not find the one I found, disable any that are from a company you do not know, and see if that solves your problem. The change is immediate. No reboot required.

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  3. Anonymous
    2022-09-23T20:59:01+00:00

    I fixed this by following other people's examples by uninstalling the only other program assoicated with zip files, 7-Zip. After uninstalling, in file explorer, I set zip files to open with explorer - right-click any zip file and "open with." Before this I could not right-click any file without having file explorer close most the time. Now i can right-click any file without problem.

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  4. Anonymous
    2022-03-07T02:20:50+00:00

    Thanks for the updates, Alex. I've reinstalled, and all is well.

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  5. Anonymous
    2022-03-07T01:44:24+00:00

    Update: the fix is no longer to downgrade, it's to update to the newest client (6.4.1). I've done so and .zip files don't make File Explorer crash.

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