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

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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  1. Anonymous
    2023-05-25T06:47:52+00:00

    yes this is working

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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
    2023-05-15T03:51:43+00:00

    After trying dnsflush trick, it was unfortunately not a long fix.

    Then I follow this : Maybe there is a broken shell extension? Download shellexview from nirsoft and disable extensions that weren't created by microsoft. Then restart explorer and test for problem. If the problem is fixed enable extensions one by one until you find the culprit.

    I then find the culprit was PDF24 for me. Uninstall and reinstalled et voila !!!

    Hope this can help to solve your problem, fixing this was not long at all with shellxview.

    I believe shellexview and disable problematic shell extensions is currently the only solution.

    Microsoft should have a look into this issue, it is not caused by a single software or single extension.

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  4. Anonymous
    2023-05-13T22:31:39+00:00

    Great!

    It's also PDF24 for me!

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  5. Anonymous
    2023-05-04T15:34:25+00:00

    I uninstalled PDF24 and then reinstalled it again WITHOUT THE DLL OPTION. Now, I can unzip my files without any problem.

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