BleepingComputer.com: Windows Explorer Has Stopped Working - Help!

Hi there.

I hope someone can help me.
I'm using Vista Home Basic on a Dell Inspiron 1520 laptop. My problem is that Windows Explorer keeps crashing and giving me the messages "Windows Explorer has stopped working", and then "Windows Explorer is restarting", and then making the whole desktop disappear and restart. It's only when I open a particular folder on my harddrive. It's the 'Downloads' folder, in which I have some video files. I was trying to transfer the files over to my external hard drive to free up some space when it started happening. I can still open other things in Explorer such as Control Panel, My Documents, etc.

I have tried several fixes, none of which have worked, including:

• System Restore - I restored to a point before I noticed it happening, but it didn't work. I don't have an earlier restore point.
  
• Tried turning off UAC as someone in another forum said it worked for them - it didn't work for me.
  
• Have checked in Programs & Features for any programs that shouldn't be there. There was nothing suspicious, but I uninstalled everything that had been installed recently anyway, and the problem kept happening.
  
• Have scanned with AVG, Spybot and Trojan Remover. Only Spybot found anything, but the removal of these items did not make a difference. Currently scanning with Housecall, but it's taking ages.
  
• I started the PC in Safe Mode because I thought I might be able to transfer the files that way, but the same thing happened.
  
• I have been able to backup all my data by transferring my user folder over to my external drive, but when I opened the copy of the 'Downloads' folder that had copied over to the drive, the same thing happened. I'd really like to be able to access these files! Or if it's the files that are causing the problem, I'd like to be able to delete the offending files - but the window won't even stay open long enough for me to do that! Don't want to have to delete the entire folder and lose the data.
  
• I logged onto Dell's remote support chat thingy, and the guy told me to restore Internet Explorer to factory settings. Unsurprisingly this didn't do anything. He then said the only solution would be to do back up all my data and do a full PC restore! I really don't want to have to do this.

I hope I've explained everything adequately. If anyone can help in any way, I'd be most grateful. Thanks in advance.

Oh, I forgot to add - I looked in event viewer and the error logs all say something like this:

Faulting application explorer.exe, version 6.0.6000.16549, time stamp 0x46d230c5, faulting module unknown, version 0.0.0.0, time stamp 0x00000000, exception code 0xc0000005, fault offset 0x012c0edf, process id 0xd9c, application start time 0x01c8d416a7991786.

*bump*

Please, can anyone help? This is driving me nuts!

Most times this is caused by malware. I'd suggest trying a couple of these online scans in case the infection has corrupted your installed protection software:

(Be advised that some of these scanners will pickup things in "quarantine" from other anti-virus programs - so review the results carefully)

http://housecall.trendmicro.com
http://www.pandasecurity.com/homeusers/solutions/activescan/
http://www.kaspersky.com/virusscanner Scan Only - no removal
http://www.bitdefender.com/scan8/ie.html
http://support.f-secure.com/enu/home/ols.shtml
http://us.mcafee.com/root/mfs/default.asp
http://onlinescan.avast.com/
http://ca.com/us/securityadvisor/virusinfo/scan.aspx
http://www.eset.com/onlinescan/

<links compiled on 02/14/2008>

Thanks, but I've already tried several of those scans. They take ages, find a couple of items and get rid of them, and then the problem persists.

Does anyone have any other suggestions? I read somewhere that it might help to boot from the Vista disk. If I do this, will I lose all my data etc?

Or anything else? I've spent literally hours on forums trying different solutions, and none of them have worked. I realise it could be worse - some people have this problem with all instances of Windows Explorer, rendering their PC almost unusable. For me it is just this one folder. Still, it is really really frustrating!! Help!