Member Avatar for Ritesh_4

Hello, am currently troubleshooting a PC running XP SP3 Pro, and found that in the the taskmanager, under Processes tab there are 2 explorer.exe running. Anyone knows why? Virus scan and scan with Malwarebytes returned nothing, just in case...

  • 6 Contributors
  • 13 Replies
  • 349 Views
  • 2 Months Discussion Span
  • Latest Post Latest Post by gerbil

Dani AI

Generated

A short, practical summary that ties the thread together and fills gaps in the replies from , and .

Multiple explorer.exe processes can be harmless, but the specific symptom of missing notification‑area (system tray) icons at logon usually means the interactive shell instance that owns the taskbar/tray wasn’t the one that finished initializing (or an explorer process started in a different security/context). The exchange above correctly notes several causes; what follows is a focused, evidence‑based diagnostic and set of fixes that were not shown in the replies.

Useful diagnostics and safe fixes

  • Identify the shell owner: use a window/process inspector (for example, Process Explorer) and its Find Window tool (crosshair) to click the taskbar or tray. That reveals which explorer.exe PID and account own the tray. If the tray is owned by a PID running as SYSTEM or a different user, that explains why user icons didn’t load. Terminate only the non‑shell instance or sign out/in so the correct shell starts.
  • Isolate third‑party interference: check startup entries (Autoruns) and temporarily disable non‑Microsoft shell extensions (ShellExView). Shell extensions or odd startup items often spawn extra explorer instances or prevent the tray from initializing.

XP‑specific recovery step

  • Clearing the notification‑area cache forces Windows to rebuild icons. Back up the registry first, then remove the two TrayNotify values shown below and restart the shell.
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\TrayNotify
  - IconStreams
  - PastIconsStream

Additional isolation: test in Safe Mode or create a fresh user profile to determine whether the problem is profile‑specific. These diagnostics (identify the tray owner, review startup items, disable non‑Microsoft shell extensions, and clear the tray cache) will typically reveal the root cause and restore the missing icons without a full OS reinstall.

Recommended Answers

All 13 Replies

Member Avatar for jbennet

Thats normal. One will be the desktop (in general) and then there will be an additional explorer process for every open file browser window.

commented: agree with your post. correct. +6
Member Avatar for jbennet

Thats normal. One will be the desktop (in general) and then there will be an additional explorer process for every open file browser window.

Member Avatar for gerbil

I beg to differ, jb. Under XP, if there is an attempt to open explorer a check is first done to see if it is already running. If so, then a new window is opened via the first explorer instance. A second instance can be opened by checking Launch folder window under a separate process in Folder Options. But only a second will be opened this way. I think, but have not checked, that a second can also be opened under the System as owner...

Member Avatar for 117

You could try to open up TaskManager, CTRL + SHIFT + ESC.

Then click on the "Processes" tab, from there right-click on explorer.exe
and then click on End process. This will probably disable explorer.exe, which means
that windows, taskbar and desktop wont be visible.

Then, just open up Taskmanager again CTRL + SHIFT + ESC , click on File located on the menubar -> New Task (Run...).
A window will appear with the title "Create new task".
In the textfield, type: "explorer.exe" (without quotes) and it will enable the right process.
Thus, ensuring you it is not virus-related.

Hope this helps.

Member Avatar for Ritesh_4

In fact the problem am getting is that when 2 explorer.exe are running when I load Windows, my local area connection icon and some other icons are not loaded in system tray, I need to close both exes and run explorer.exe again to get them back

Member Avatar for Ritesh_4

I checked the folder options as well whether they are spawning a separate process when being opened, but the option was unchecked

Member Avatar for Sadun89

Hey....
do you ever log into System user in windows XP...
While logging to system user there are 2 explorers.
Don’t worry about it as others said. Its normal.
I think two explorers get same memory..(You can see it in taskmng)
If not rather whole memory that allocate to the explorer divided into two parts (logically;but not sure)

Member Avatar for rubberman

You can also configure your system so that each open explorer window is a separate process (I do that, for security and performance needs). It requires more memory, but is more stable, in my opinion. At least if something causes one instance to crash, all of the others are unaffected. This can keep the system running in unusual circumstances.

Member Avatar for gerbil

Read up, rman. You will not get more than 2 explorer processes no matter how many windows you open.

Member Avatar for rubberman

You will if you set the explorer file options appropriately. I have mine set to run each open explorer window in a separate process. That is not the default - it is as you say. However, that can be overridden easily enough, and trust me when I say that I can have a number of explorer.exe processes running - 1 for each open explorer window.

Edited by rubberman
Member Avatar for gerbil

Well, that is interesting, rman. I get the default explorer process running with desktop; if I open explorer windows no more open. Setting "Launch... in sep process" will give me another instance. But only one, no matter how many windows are open. : so two max..

Member Avatar for Ritesh_4

Am finally scraping the XP to a Win 7 OS, the problem of 2 exes being present despite the option of launching folders in separate processes being unchecked and system tray not loading properly forced me to take this step. However I agree with gerbil, only 2 explorer.exes are created when the folders are allowed to open in separate processes, checked on a Win 7 machine :)

Member Avatar for gerbil

Lordt (that capital okay with you...?), i believe the rationale behind launching explorer windows in a separate process is that explorer runs your desktop; if in a separate process some file or folder you open is so corrupted that it kicks explorer silly then you will still have your desktop. So, if you set it so, 2 instances are available to you. Of course, task manager being altogether another shell, you can use that to kill explorer. If you can start it without explorer - crl-shift-esc....
This is the key that is controlled by that checkbox: HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\Advanced\SeparateProcess
Altering the checkbox forces a re-read of registry by explorer (notice that desktop flicker?), if you alter the reg entry manually you must also force a re-read by closing/opening explorer.
This key... HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\Advanced\Folder\DesktopProcess\Policy\SeparateProcess
seems to only set the parameters for the checkbox. All rather moot now that you have removed XP.

Be a part of the DaniWeb community

We're a friendly, industry-focused community of developers, IT pros, digital marketers, and technology enthusiasts meeting, networking, learning, and sharing knowledge.