The shmedia.dll is one that I stall unregister in Vista. I wish Microsoft would address this one.
Bob
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I have Windows Vista Home Premium and am having some real trouble with Windows Explorer. Every time I open My Documents (or any folder for that matter) and need to delete something Win Ex. hangs up on me. I have tried using the delete button, right-click and delete and neither work. I saw some other sites that said it may be Shell Extensions but I'm only an intermidiate user and I do not know how to go about fixing the problem. The files I usually need to open or delete are zip files and I am using SecureZIP as my default zip program. Any suggestions how to fix this?? I have to close out the program with Task Manager every time I try to open or delete something. Any tips would be appreciated.
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Just to be clear, I am receiving no error messages. Windows Explorer just hangs there and when I close the program using the Task Manager it says "windows explorer is shutting down, looking for a solution" but then it just closes.
Try downloading Safari. I have made it my dedicated browser, and aside from its inability to alphabetize my imported bookmarks, I am very pleased with it.
I have the same problem. Just a quick question. Do you have a wireless connection with a USB network hub? Since installing the Belkin USB device it is a problem to access files on the exernal hard drive. You click on My Computer and you will see the drive and then you click a few time to go into the tree and Oopps the problem starts. Complete crash and I have to shut down via the switch. Any help by Microsoft c.q. Belkin or others very welcome! Arend
I have had this problem since buying an HP E6300 Computer Pavillion G1740N with Vista about 2 years ago but it is back again as a major problem. I put a Belkin HUB on to manage my wirelesss network and was backing-up through Belkin but it was not satisfactory(slow or did not complete). I use Norton 360 for auto back-up and when I renewed to Norton 360 Premium 2008. It stoped recognizing my external hard drive and sent Vista Windows Explorer to non responding. The external hard drive device becomed "non recognized" or "unknow device".A new external hard drive was trecognized for a day but would nor back-up fully (timed out) and eventually went to not recognized and did not appear in My computer. Also Belkin will allow the device to be recognized but accessibility is a problem through Windoes Vista Explorer and back-ups will not occur.
Trying to back up thwith Windows, the Westernn Digital back-up program with a new external hard drive or Norton 360 do not work.
Is this Vista, Norton 360, or a virus? I am not getting any where with the problem.
JSP
I use Firefox. And to cover those websites that only use IE, Firefox has a plug-in (IE TAB) that will fool the internet to think it is using IE. I have IE, but it hangs up most of the time, too. Firefox works great. And you can customize it (I add the weather and a download bar so I know how long a download will take).
IE tab doesn't fool websites into thinking Internet Explorer is being used...it actually uses Internet Explorer. Although it's still loading within the Firefox browser window it's a very important distinction...some Firefox addons will not work and while using it you are vulnerable to all of Internet Explorer's security flaws while protected by none of Firefox's security features.
John
IMHO you'se guys are adding to the confusion. Not to mention windows already confusing use of INTERNET EXPLORER and WINDOWS EXPLORER. One is for browsing the WEB the other is for browsing your system. IE quit working for me earlier this year after an automatic update from MS. I switched to Firefox for web surfing. Windows Explorer still works as I believe it was intended. I have recently bought a new machine with Vista Home Premium. Internet Explorer worked, until MS upgraded it. I'm now back with FF. I have noticed while working with pictures in Windows Live Photo Gallery that selecting 50 to 100 files to delete or move causes WLPG to hang with the message (not responding) and it will just sit there until I CNTRL-ALT-DEL. I just chalked it up to some more of MS's blunders.
Thanks for your responses, but I am having issues with WINDOWS EXPLORER not IE. Refer to my initial post and let me know if anyone has any suggestions. Thanks again.
How much room do you have on your hard drive? Can you open the file you want to delete? I apologize for not thoroughly reading your first input. And last set of questions, how long have you been using secure zip? Is Vista the first OS you have used it on? Are you trying to delete the data file or the zip file?
To reply to one comment about hard disk space, I have to say my available disk space is 348GB. And it is high time now that Windows has been around for 20 odd years, to differentiate between INTERNET Explorer (a web browser) and WINDOWS Explorer (File Manager) - blame Microsoft for the confusion; they OUGHT to have called the latter WINDOWS FILE MANAGER instead of Windows Explorer, because some idiots around the world think "Explorer" is Internet Explorer, and "Windows" is Microsoft Word.
Try Explorer 8 beta , which is more compatible with Vista or Firefox 3.
The discussion is about Windows Explorer, not Internet Explorer.
WHACKEE, whacko, that is a DUNCE DUH comment! Try Explorer 8 indeed. Are you an idiot or just plain bloody studpid?
- Uninstall securezip. It might do something with zip-files that Explorer doesn't like. This is assuming that ONLY zip-files have the problem, but you're not very clear on that. For example: can you add a link to the desktop, and delete that again?
- It that doesn't help, boot in Safe Mode (with securezip still uninstalled) and try again.
- If even that fails, do an online scan (like housecall.trendmicro.com).
Not sure to help, of course, but worth a try.
Kees
I think it was just the 2 files I downloaded. Things have been working fine because I just haven't opened up the folder I downloaded them to since the problem. I'm just going to leave them there for now until I figure out whats going on. I will run that scan though, I appreciate it.
I have similiar trouble with Windows Explorer Not Responding...
Running vista home premium. when i exit from running an older video game all the desktop icons flash and i am unable to do pretty much anything. today i got a totally white screen, windows symbol in bottom left corner and sidebar with gadets running... thats it. the trouble seemed to start when i got my new monitor. went from a 19 inch lcd samsung to 23 inch lcd samsung. every other game and app run just fine. only this older game brings about the unresponsiveness from windows explorer. please help ??
But the cure is not acceptable to many which is to have the author fix their application!
If this is such a "well-known issue", why has M$ done ZIPPO to fix it? It's not only WINDOWS explorer that has the problem, my 8GB RAM 1TB HDD Vista Ultimate 64bit machine ALSO has the problem. Adobe Audition 3, for example, waits an eternity to save files, why, because of WINDOWS! Nero 8, same story. Cyberlink DVD applications are faster on Windows 2000 SP4 with only 784MB RAM than they are on Vista Ultimate 64-bit with 8GB RAM! Go figure! Makes me wonder if it has been fixed in Windows 7?
I regularly and often get the Windows Explorer Not Responding in Windows 7. Half the people who try to solve the problem give me information about Internet Explorer - what I need is a solutiion for WINDOWS EXPLORER. I am running Windows 7 Pro 64 bit. 4 GB RAM and my Hard Drive is one Tetrabyte. Any help suggestions appreciated
Many find the list or details view is a workaround. You still find failures if the file type is associated with WMP and WMP can't deal with the content.
Hope this helps,
Bob
PS. I have purposely omitted prior discussion answers about codecs and unregistering filters.
You mentioned that many others refer to Internet Explorer suggestions to your problem when your problem is with Windows Explorer.
Unless you live in Europe and purchased Windows 7 system in the last few months, your Windows will have installed with Internet Explorer very tightly integrated into Windows, such that your Desktop, (Explorer), Windows Explorer, and Internet Explorer, are all closely connected.
European users now purchase Windows 7 where they have a choice of browser, and IE is not installed by default. However I would suspect that many of the components of IE are still installed into the OS.
But since you are using Vista, then your Windows Explorer and Internet Explorer are closely related, and problems with one can cause difficulties with the other. That's why you often see these two grouped together in suggestions. For example, bad add-ons in IE can cause problems with explorer and Windows Explorer.
Specifically, Windows Explorer problems like 'not responding' can also be traced back to corrupt video files. If your Windows Explorer is attempting to open a folder in thumbnail view or Icon view, Explorer attempts to render the videos to display the icons. If it comes across a video that is corrupted, typically an AVI video, then it may crash. Changing the view for all folders to List or Details will prevent that.
If that is not the case with your Windows Explorer issue, then more details of the problem would help.
Mark
1) If the Problem is from IE, integration, how will switching to Firefox help (Integration is still in effect)?
2) If Windows explorer is hanging up because of IE, then how come IE is working just fine at the same time?
Obviously this is a plroblem with Explorer.exe not with IE.
In my opinion (I also have the same problem), this is a bi-product of Vista having too many bells and whistles. If the folder you are in has a lot of files, Vista's Explorer.exe get's hung up trying to re-index the contents of the folder.
I have reduced the problem by unchecking as many items as I could reasonably do in the Folder Options View tab, and counter-intuitively, I selected "show preview and filter" in the General Tab of Folder Options.
This issue is well discussed and once in a while you find a person new to the issue and they need a little more explaining. Here goes.
Microsoft does not consider the hanging explorer on a corrupt jpeg to be a bug. So far MS has shown no sign of making the app or OS resist a hang. This can confuse those that have not dealt with Microsoft or at all. As an author and more I have attended too many seminars, shows and inside roll outs so this issue is easy for me.
If you need more details I'll try to explain it another way but for now and the forseeable future the old Explorer hang is going to be with us for many more years.
Bob
I have that intermittent problems - I think, in my case, it is something to do with USB devices, either flash drives, or USB multi-ports. When it does happens, I can work around it, but can't close it with anything, including task manager. I pull everything from USB and restart,which usually does the trick. MarkFlax had a point when he was talking about corrupted video being the cause - problem is trying to find which one!