Explorer.exe crashes, wont even open

[Camman]

Everytime I open anything that uses Explorer.exe I used to be getting this Dr Watson error. So, following advice from another site, I shut down Dr. Watson, but, now I found the root of the problem and what Dr. Watson was showing as failing. I've been struggling with this all day, anyone have any ideas what's the deal or how to fix it?

[Straight_Man]

Memory address 0????????!!!!!!!!!!!!!! (that should NEVER happen)


What is Sysfader?????

Can you get the debug trace, please??? And cut-n-paste it into a text file and attach here????

[Camman]

No idea, been working on this machine for HOURS, can't figure it out. I've killed all the spyware on it, but this Explorer.exe crashing/Sysfader thing is killing me :(

I cant get a debug trace cause DrWatson crashes when it tries to run debug

[flyrice]

May not be spyware. Virus possibly? Have you installed anything between the system being good and FUBARing?

[Camman]

its a client machine, ive been working on it for hours, at this point i feel like just giving it back to him and saying **** it i cant fix the damn thing without blowing everything out of the system

[shwaip]

memtest? :P

But seriously, I get that, or a similar error sometimes when I try to tighten the timings on my ram too much. I don't know if the machine is an OEM or custom, but take a look at RAM frequency/timings if you can.

[Camman]

fixed it, after swearing very loudly and throwing some discs across the room

[TheSmJ]

What was wrong?

[BeReal]

fixed it, after swearing very loudly and throwing some discs across the room

how did you fix it? This thing is ruining my life!! I can't open My Computer, My documents or anything else that requires explorer.exe

Help needed please

Thanks

[Camman]

well interestingly enough, it was actually a pretty simple fix.

Starting in Safe Mode allowed me to do all the things that would work before like opening my computer and using the computer without explorer crashing.

So I just started in safe mode and then ran the series of programs.

Ad-Aware, Spybot S&D, Microsoft Anti-Spyware, and an AVG Scan for good measure and it seemed to fix the problem. You may want to run HijackThis while you're in safe mode as well and get rid of anything fishy looking in there.

[BeReal]

well interestingly enough, it was actually a pretty simple fix.

Starting in Safe Mode allowed me to do all the things that would work before like opening my computer and using the computer without explorer crashing.

So I just started in safe mode and then ran the series of programs.

Ad-Aware, Spybot S&D, Microsoft Anti-Spyware, and an AVG Scan for good measure and it seemed to fix the problem. You may want to run HijackThis while you're in safe mode as well and get rid of anything fishy looking in there.

I tried all of that and the problem is still there. I found a temporary solution though. Simply end the process "rundll32"