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General discussion

Can't Access Windows Explorer From Programs

by drkshdw92 Jan 24, 2010 11:47AM PST

Hey guys. I have a pretty major problem here, and I have no idea what to do. Maybe you can help.

So I can't access Windows Explorer from any program other than actually clicking the explorer itself, by clicking Documents or Computer or whatever, you get the idea. When I try to attach a file from gmail, when I try to use a file converter and it asks to locate the file, or even pasting album art or something, it just accesses a random folder somewhere deep in my computer and freezes there. It's really weird. I tried once to upload a photo to a profile of mine, and for whatever reason, when the window popped up after I clicked the "browse" in the application, it just froze up. When I try exiting the little window, it gives me that "not responding" message and windows explorer restarts.

The funny thing is that it seriously picks out random stuff. For instance, that picture I was trying to upload. It picked out a song I hadn't heard in years. It picks out ANYTHING when I start it up, from documents to videos...it's weird.

And my computer's just slower in general.

HELP!

My computer is/has:

Dell Studio 540
Intel Core 2 Quad CPU @2.83 GHz each. Q9550.
8GB RAM
Windows Vista 64 bit, now has SP2, but this started before I had it.

Thanks guys!

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1 Posts

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Explorer explained poorly.

by r. proffitt Forum moderator Jan 24, 2010 11:08PM PST

Let me try this. Explorer does lock up if a directory or folder has a file it can't handle. That is an enduring bug that MSFT will not correct for reasons discussed in other discussions.

Ok, what to do about it?

Try unregistering explorer's rendering feature. Here's one of hundreds of articles about how -> http://www.virtualdub.org/blog/pivot/entry.php?id=89

shmedia is just one of the many items I've unregistered to get Explorer to stop crashing. There are others but I must not go on and on about it. Let's sum it up.

Explorer will crash if there are files that it can't handle. MSFT has yet to tackle this one except to tell us to move these files out or off the machine or delete the corrupt (according to MSFT).

Now you know. Now you can research this further.
Bob

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