Win7-U context menu issue

CBCB Ƹ̵̡Ӝ̵̨̄ƷDer Millionendorf- Icrontian
edited March 2010 in Science & Tech
For the last couple weeks, I've had an issue with my Windows Explorer context menus. Right clicking on a folder has become a Russian roulette for Explorer's stability. It only seems to happen with folders (i.e. not files or libraries or drives or whatever), and it only seems to happen about 20% of the time, and it's not always the same folders. What it's doing is hanging Explorer. It will sit giving me the thinking cursor, being completely unresponsive otherwise, until I give up and click the red 'X', which ends explorer.exe.

The first time it happened was soon after a Java update, relevance unknown. Also may or may not be related to my Network controller issue, which began at the same time.

I was thinking that it might have been some application which might have installed a context menu entry, but looking at the context menu, it doesn't look like anything doesn't belong there, and notrhing there is new as of the beginning of the issue. Any Ideas?

Comments

  • CBCB Ƹ̵̡Ӝ̵̨̄Ʒ Der Millionendorf- Icrontian
    edited November 2009
    I guess it's not just confined to folders. Today it did it when right-clicking on a word document.

    It still seems to be isolated in Windows Explorer.
  • CBCB Ƹ̵̡Ӝ̵̨̄Ʒ Der Millionendorf- Icrontian
    edited November 2009
    Bump to see if anyone has had any ideas now that they've had time to think about it.
  • propedorpropedor
    edited November 2009
    You should probably send the crash report when it occurs (in case you're not already).

    Maybe the details will help here. Do you see an entry you can copy in Reliability Monitor?
  • CBCB Ƹ̵̡Ӝ̵̨̄Ʒ Der Millionendorf- Icrontian
    edited November 2009
    propedor wrote:
    You should probably send the crash report when it occurs (in case you're not already).

    Maybe the details will help here. Do you see an entry you can copy in Reliability Monitor?

    I sent a crash report once, but that's not something they actually reply to. How does one use Reliability Monitor? I only seem to have Performance Monitor installed.
  • propedorpropedor
    edited November 2009
    I tried searching for "Reliability Monitor" on the start menu and it brought up "View reliability history". That goes to Control Panel\System and Security\Action Center\Reliability Monitor. Then you can click "View all problem reports" at the bottom I think.

    And actually you would be notified in Action Center if/when a response to the crash is developed--or even if MS needs more info from you to debug (apparently).
  • mtroxmtrox Minnesota
    edited November 2009
    I'm seeing that same issue CB. You've narrowed it down more than I have....but yes, seems its just in Windows Explorer. Sometimes it will shut down, restart, then I right click again on the same damn file and it's happy.

    Don't know your hardware, but this is a ThinkPad with a C 2 Duo P8400 and 3 Gigs or RAM. Typical TPad MoBo. I would guess your hardware (and consequently drivers) are quite different.
  • CBCB Ƹ̵̡Ӝ̵̨̄Ʒ Der Millionendorf- Icrontian
    edited November 2009
    propedor wrote:
    I tried searching for "Reliability Monitor" on the start menu and it brought up "View reliability history". That goes to Control Panel\System and Security\Action Center\Reliability Monitor. Then you can click "View all problem reports" at the bottom I think.

    And actually you would be notified in Action Center if/when a response to the crash is developed--or even if MS needs more info from you to debug (apparently).

    Okay, that brought it up, as you said. However, the explorer crashes aren't showing in the list of past problems.

    I do see the COM surrogate in the list, but that seems to be from a different issue, as the time on the report doesn't line up with the context menu errors.

    mtrox wrote:
    I'm seeing that same issue CB. You've narrowed it down more than I have....but yes, seems its just in Windows Explorer. Sometimes it will shut down, restart, then I right click again on the same damn file and it's happy.

    Don't know your hardware, but this is a ThinkPad with a C 2 Duo P8400 and 3 Gigs or RAM. Typical TPad MoBo. I would guess your hardware (and consequently drivers) are quite different.

    Yeah, that's completely different from my system:

    Processor
    AMD Athlon 64 X2 3800+

    Motherboard
    ASUS M2N-E

    Memory
    1022MB OCZ RAM

    Video Card
    GeForce 7600 GT

    Storage
    Samsung 250GB HD

    Optical
    Writemaster DVD writer | MTRP 40x CD-ROM

    Displays
    Acer P244w | NEC LCD1512

    Peripherals
    Zboard | Logitech G5

    The programs I have putting entries into the context menus are WinRAR, SnagIt, Avast, and CuteFTP. Do you use any of those?
  • mtroxmtrox Minnesota
    edited November 2009
    Yes. WinRAR........

    Hmmmmm.........

    EDIT: Just looked. I installed WinRAR without any context menu stuff. So the only things in my context menus are malwarebytes and Avir.
  • CBCB Ƹ̵̡Ӝ̵̨̄Ʒ Der Millionendorf- Icrontian
    edited January 2010
    I still don't know what to do to fix this issue. It's gotten to the point where I go out of my way to avoid using context menus in explorer.
  • CBCB Ƹ̵̡Ӝ̵̨̄Ʒ Der Millionendorf- Icrontian
    edited March 2010
    Update: I figured out the culprit.

    I uninstalled Avast, and the problem went away. I'm a Security Essentials man now, and I've got my context menus back.
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