BleepingComputer.com: Windows Expolorer's severe trouble

I own a real good functioning, permanently scanned, defragged, a square antivirus, continuous malware application scanned, etc., desk PC, that has started to disclose severe WE troubles. Practically nothing can be do that involves WE, because it hangs the PC, starting for allerting that a trouble has happened and that it will send the failures. If one is with luck, it spontaneoulsy get recovered and, then, one is able to rise its pirorities at the 'real time' point getting some stability. If not it's necessary to turn the PC off with the start button!!!! that for me is most disagreable. I have an XP pro Pack3. It's the only failure; but most disturbing. Mostly appreciated some help. Kind regards and thanks.

A clean install would be my first step/solution. Before I did that, I would run the appropriate hard drive diagnostic to check the status of the drive before I attempted a clean install.

IMO, over time, something is bound to create a disturbance in Windows or the hardware. To troubleshoot the problem, something needs to be taken out of the equation of possibilities and Windows is the easiest, most convenient item. If problems continue, then I would look to hardware.

For those who think that every problem with Windows can be "fixed", I suggest starting with taking a good look at errors reflected in Event Viewer.

I would also download/run BlueScreenView, to see if there are any .dmp files which have been indicating problems but which I have ignored or been unaware of.

Louis

This post has been edited by hamluis: 14 December 2010 - 06:58 PM

Short term fix that might work. Go to task manager and kill the explorer.exe process and then click on file, "new task run", and type in explorer.exe. Just basically restarting explorer. That fixes a lot of hang ups that I encounter. Again, that is a short term fix that doesn't resolve the underlying issue.

When "the criminal" gives me time, that's what I do. But that is just short term solution. Many thanks. Cheers

jwjw2010, on 14 December 2010 - 10:51 PM, said:

Many thanks. Excuse, please, my ignorance, but what does your second paragraph mean. IMO???

I will try to perform what you advice me.

Many thanks and kind regards.

hamluis, on 14 December 2010 - 06:44 PM, said:

merellogalasso, on 15 December 2010 - 06:42 AM, said:

IMO = in my opinion

Ho, ho, ho. Please, be so kind to keep in mind that abbreviations at such degree are not still in use here. Cheers.

AustrAlien, on 15 December 2010 - 06:46 AM, said:

The issue you are experiencing may be the result of hard disk file system corruption. Please do the following:

The first thing that you should do is to check that your hard drive is not failing. On a working computer, download the diagnostic utility from the hard drive manufacturer's website to create a bootable floppy or CD.

• Find the brand name of your hard drive. You will find this info on the label of the hard drive (most likely you will have to remove the hard drive from the box to read the label). You will also find sufficient info to identify the drive (the model number) by looking at the hdd code in the BIOS Setup Menu, and then googling the code. Another alternative is to use something like Everest or Belarc Advisor.
  
  
  • EVEREST Free Edition 2.20
    http://majorgeeks.com/download4181.html
    
    
  • Belarc Advisor - Free Personal PC Audit (Version 8.1b)
    http://www.belarc.com/free_download.html (Version 8.1b)
    
    
  • Hard Drive Diagnostics Tools and Utilities
    http://www.tacktech.com/display.cfm?ttid=287
    
    
  • Hard Drive Installation and Diagnostic Tools
    http://www.bleepingcomputer.com/forums/topic28744.html
    
    
  • For Toshiba hard drives
    http://sdd.toshiba.com/main.aspx?Path=ServicesSupport/FujitsuDrivesUSandCanada/SoftwareUtilities#diagnostic
  
  
• If you have trouble identifying your hard drive manufacturer, use the Hitachi diagnostic utility: It will work with most hard drives.

To make a bootable CD, download the .ISO image to your computer. If you don't have a suitable burning program, download ImgBurn and install it. Open ImgBurn, and choose to "Write image file to disc", and then navigate to the .ISO file that you have just downloaded. The completed CD will then be bootable.

Boot the afflicted machine with with the CD that you have just burned, and run the short/quick test and then the long/extended test. If the hard drive tests show NO problems what-so-ever with the hard drive, then it is safe to proceed with more work to check and fix any disk file system corruption.

Note : If you do not know how to set your computer to boot from CD, see the following link:
How to Set BIOS to Boot from CDROM:
http://www.hiren.info/pages/bios-boot-cdrom


If there is no problem what-so-ever with the hard drive as shown by the above test ... and if your computer is still booting into Windows OK, continue with the next step.


Use the Windows Error checking utility (Check Disk), with the option to "Automatically fix file system errors".

• Open "My Computer"
  
• Right-click on the drive that you wish to check (C: drive/your System drive) > Properties > Tools > and in the "Error checking" section, click on "Check now".
  
• Place a tick in the upper box ONLY "Automatically fix file system errors" > Start.
  
• A message will notify you that a restart is necessary: Click OK, and close all windows.
  
• Re-start the computer. The disk will be checked when the system boots.
  This test will take some time to run and at times may appear stalled but just let it run.
  
• When the disk check is complete, the system will re-start automatically and load Windows.
  
• If any errors were found, it may be prudent to repeat Check Disk.

Find the log produced by the Error Check (Check Disk), and post it to the forum.

A log of the disk check is recorded (only if the scheduled re-start is used).

To open Event Viewer and view the log:

• Go to Start > Run > and type eventvwr and press the <ENTER> key.
  
• In the left pane, click on Application.
  
• In the right pane, at the top, click on the column heading Source to sort the list alphabetically.
  
• Look in the Source column for "Winlogon", with an entry corresponding to the date and time of the disk check.
  
• Double-click on that entry to view the log.
  
• Click on the "copy" button to copy the log to the clipboard.
  
• Paste the log text into your next reply.

This post has been edited by AustrAlien: 15 December 2010 - 06:59 AM