Windows Explorer Not Responding

[digital11]

Hi. I'm having trouble with Windows Explorer. It works fine apart from my 'downloads' file where it keeps restarting. I have scanned with Malwarebytes and executed System Restore to no avail. Any help appreciated.

[hotmatrixx]

Sorry, I want to clarify, you mean if you try and open "downloads", explorer crashes?

please state your version of windows (xp, pro, vista, 7)?
please let me know if you are:

• absolute beginner (ok, where is that?)
• ok user (know how and wher to navigate to find things)
• proficient? (eg I know what the command-line is and how to use it)

thanks
hotmatrixx

[digital11]

I'm using Windows 7 and it's only my downloads folder that crashes, as soon as I open it. I would say I am an ok user.

[hotmatrixx]

what's really intersting, is I had the same thing happen to me, just yesterday. same folder. I can't remember what I did, so I can't really replicate it.

can you tell me the path that you took to get to your downloads? did you navigate from my computer -c:\-users... etc or did you use the start menu\username\sownloads, or do you have a shortcut to it somewhere, etc?

I had the same issue when I opened it up from the "open in new window context"...

I am thinking about this...

tried it and it seems to have remedied itself.

I guess that you could try a checkdsk operation. do yo know how to do that? it requires a reboot and some time...

open my computer
rclick on your main OS drive
properties
tools
check for errors

posts back to me what you did to cause the error, first though.

hopefully we can work through this.
cheers

[digital11]

Already tried checkdisk - no errors. I navigate through: Start/Username/Downloads.

[hotmatrixx]

problems if you drill down to it through explorer from my computer?

go to start-user
rclick on downloads
properties
check the settings in there, especially under the location tab. It should be
c:\users\your-username\downloads

[digital11]

The location in 'properties' was users/username/downloads. Crashes any way I try to access it.

[hotmatrixx]

Try having a poke around in the event viewer:

open via:
(past into explorer)
Control Panel\System and Security\Administrative Tools\event viewer

will take a few seconds to load

drill down to
windows logs
-application

will take a few seconds to load

and have a look for explorer events.
you can use the "find" feature on the right.

see anything that might be useful?

[digital11]

Looks like I've fixed it. I went into folder options & turned off thumbnail view, then went into downloads and deleted the files, turned thumbnails back on. Voila. Thanks for all the help.

[hotmatrixx]

wow, cool.

looks like you really are an ók user':-)

how did you think of that? where did the solution come from?
was it in your EV, was it from online - what made you try something so inconspicuous, something must have given you a clue?