MS Explorer problem

[peterg]

I have three Windows 7x64 computers, and on two of the three Microsoft Explorer has quit working properly. All three have Internet Explorer 9 and I am fairly certain that this arose after installing IE9, although with Update Tuesday just two days before it could have been a problem with that. Has anyone else run into this problem?

[JoeP517]

Do you mean Windows Explorer or Internet Explorer?

What do you mean by "quit working properly"

Have you tried uninstall IE9? Is this the beta or RC?

Have you checked the Event Logs?

Joe

[CLiNT]

A good example and a solid reason behind why we make a drive image backup prior to the installation of a major application version upgrade.
More specific information is required Peter.

[peterg]

Do you mean Windows Explorer or Internet Explorer?

What do you mean by "quit working properly"

Have you tried uninstall IE9? Is this the beta or RC?

Have you checked the Event Logs?

Joe

Thanks Joe,

Windows Explorer

Start|Computer (or Games, for example, or worst of all, Control Panel: it restarts Explorer, but Explorer crashes again when you invoke it again) = "Windows Explorer Has Stopped Working". So much for uninstalling via Control Panel.

RC (Beta was never installed). The computer that does work is full 64-bit Office.

Haven't tried your suggestions yet, but I will do so. I have this on two machines (one desktop and one laptop) so I'm very surprised to be the only one with the problem. The computers are as different as day and night so far as installed applications are concerned, and one is Windows 7N and the other Windows 7. I do have a prior backup of one but not an immediate backup of the other.

[ruirib]

Installing the IE9 RC had no effect on my Windows Explorer.

I actually find Windows Explorer the least reliable visible part of Windows 7. On my laptop, quite often, it stops refreshing folder contents or desktop contents and, sometimes, opening a folder takes a lot of time, until I kill the process and start it again. I also get a random crash, once in a while. This was the situation right from day 1 of Windows install on the laptop. It's more robust on the desktop (x64), but it also does its thing once in a while.

[jwitalka]

Sounds like explorer is having a hard time reading your disk. Try checking your hard drive by running chkdsk c: /f .

Jerry

[ruirib]

Sounds like explorer is having a hard time reading your disk. Try checking your hard drive by running chkdsk c: /f .

Jerry

All it needs to refresh properly is for the process to be killed and restarted again. It does the same on the desktop, just less often.

[CLiNT]

Attempt to run the system file checker utility to see if it can repair the faulty windows explorer, do so from an elevated command promt.
After opening the elevated command promt, open taskmanager and kill the windows explorer's exe, then procede with the sfc /scannow.


sfc /scannow
To See and Read the SFC /SCANNOW Scan Results
NOTE: When SFC runs, it logs it's actions to the C:\WINDOWS\LOGS\CBS\CBS.LOG. This will show you how to see only the specific SFC entries with the [SR] tags in the CBS.log. This can be helpful to show you what files SFC could not fix automatically if you wanted to try and manually replace them.
findstr /c:"[SR]" %windir%\logs\cbs\cbs.log >%userprofile%\Desktop\sfcdetails.txt
Type the above in elevated command prompt for details from the CBS.LOG.

[ruirib]

Thanks, Clint. No references to explorer on the log. Will see if any of the fixes done will help with explorer.

[peterg]

The problem may have nothing to do with IE9, because I may have made any number of identical program changes on both machines.


I was positive the post that suggested drive errors were the problem was correct, because when I tested them both showed drive errors. That seemed odd to me, until I remembered how many changes were made in a short period of time. When I corrected the drive errors the problem remained.


I got the cure thanks to a little trick that was posted by Joe in a different context. That was a thread on restore points in which he suggested putting a shortcut on the desktop. I realized that I would have a pre-IE9 restore point, but without Explorer, how do you get to your restore points? For that I used Joe’s shortcut (which I obviously had to have before the fact). Because it is a shortcut, it bypasses Explorer completely. Now Explorer works perfectly, with IE8 restored. IE9 is fine on my other 64-bit computer, but I can’t afford to experiment with these two.