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
    2023-03-25T21:07:08+00:00

    I had the same problem but resolved it by following steps.

    Open your CMD and type

    ipconfig /flushdns

    hit enter

    I was so confused when this actually worked. beyond me as i don't know how the connection has anything to do with ui and zip files. but it worked.

    What the .... !!! what flushing DNS is related to open ZIP!?!?!?

    Really no idea but any way it's work !!!

    Thanks

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  2. Anonymous
    2023-03-30T17:29:19+00:00

    How does Microsoft ignore this issue?

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  3. Anonymous
    2023-04-04T03:44:28+00:00

    This has been a pain ever since windows 11 came out, sometimes for work I have to deal with multiple compressed files a day..

    however I might have just stumbled across a solution (for me anyway as it is currently working.. but will see if it holds)

    I had to uninstall my adobe cs2 suite - When I looked online to see if anyone had similar success, one user said they "uninstalled Adobe Acrobat Reader DC and Adobe Photoshop CS4 and all it's components because of a file called: BIB.dll"

    Anyway, just incase it is the issue for someone else!

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  4. Anonymous
    2023-04-04T21:41:35+00:00

    Lately, I've been using the using Word to unzip the files. This seems to be isolated to Windows Explorer exclusively.

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  5. Anonymous
    2023-04-05T13:37:58+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.

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