Windows 10 Explorer freezes when selecting word file

Anonymous
2018-02-18T07:56:01+00:00

Hi,

My brand new laptop with  configuration 16GB RAM,128GB SSD,2TB HDDn  getting stuck/freeze randomly at least one time a day.

Tried following fixes

  1. clean boot

2.Memory error check

  1. Trouble shooter

4.Power troubleshooter

5.Updated all drivers

and many

Any solution to this weird issue? 

Thanks

Anoop

Microsoft 365 and Office | Word | For home | Windows

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Anonymous
2018-10-11T19:35:24+00:00

Like many of us, I've tried the fixes on the support pages at the top of the G**gle search results today, then tried adding 'Word' to the mix and hoorah, I'm not the only one! (*Sorry Bing - your daily pictures are great, though!)

Turning off the 2 ancillary panes completely fixed the problem and I was FINALLY able to delete the word file I'd been trying to drag to the trash for an hour. Thanks to everyone trying to once again provide a fix.

To anyone not sure of how to do this, open File Explorer (or any folder) and click on 'View' at the top. On the left side you'll see the Navigation pane setting and to the right of it Preview pane and Details pane. It seems like you have a choice of which pane to choose, but actually you don't have to have one at all - clicking selects one but clicking it again deselects it. And if you set your view option to 'Details' your contents will be in list view with the details to the right. The only annoyance is a lack of a preview. I guess that beats FREEZING every time one touches a Microsoft Word file.

Sure do miss the Metered Connection fix to block the updates...

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  1. Anonymous
    2018-10-03T16:22:41+00:00

    The issue is definitely with having selected any sort of preview in Explorer View options. Doing no preview immediately fixed the issue in Explorer and when opening from Word. No idea how to solve the Preview problem though.

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  2. Anonymous
    2018-09-24T20:01:08+00:00

    My wife's PC was having issues with moving or clicking on Word docs while in Windows Explorer.   I turned of "preview pane" and it stopped freezing.  Hope that helps someone.   Word would open fine and open the documents fine, but when in explorer, she tried to move files into subfolders, once she clicked on them, file explorer would freeze and show "(Not responding)" on the top menu panel.

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  3. Anonymous
    2018-04-11T09:49:55+00:00

    OK so I discovered what was causing the issue and I solved it, but not in a convenience way.

    When I select any Word file, and sometimes Excel or PowerPoint files, I noticed that a process was initiated in the task manager -> processes tab.

    The process name is Word, Excel, and/or PowerPoint. There is a small arrow next to the process that shows a breakdown of that process. When I click it shows a sub-process called "COM Surrogate". Once I end all of these processes the freezing state will be gone and I can control file explorer again until I select a Word file again.

    So to solve this issue, I uninstalled MS Office. On top of that, I performed two DISM commands and an sfc/ scannow command. The issue now is gone but I haven't installed MS office yet.

    The two DISM commands:

    1. DISM /Online /Cleanup-Image /CheckHealth   OR   DISM /Online /Cleanup-Image /CheckHealth (I can't remember)

    2. DISM /Online /Cleanup-Image /RestoreHealth

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  4. Neil D 34,305 Reputation points Volunteer Moderator
    2018-02-18T10:12:08+00:00

    Does the same thing happen if you open Word with a blank document, then select open in Word an browse to your document. I'm assuming you are opening File Explorer and double clicking on a word file at the moment.

    What version of Word/Office do you have. Although if it's the same with Libre Office it seems strange. Are you using any 3rd party antivirus program.?

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