Windows Explorer (File Manager) freezes

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I often get the file explorer locking up my system (Win 10 64 bit). I can’t access task manager due to the system lock up. Sometimes repeated attempts to close the file manager causes a complete redrawing of the desktop preceded by a quick transient blue screen, Sometimes I have to force a reboot by shuuting down the system manually (pressing the stop button.) Anyone else experiencing this problem.

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Try having task manager running all the time to see if you can identify a problem process.

Are you trying to access a network resource when this happens?
Are you trying to access an external drive when this happens?
Have you examined the Event logs to see if anything sticks out?

--Joe

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Try having task manager running all the time to see if you can identify a problem process.

Are you trying to access a network resource when this happens?
Are you trying to access an external drive when this happens?
Have you examined the Event logs to see if anything sticks out?

I am only accessing the drives on my computer. How do I find event logs?

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Win R
eventvwr.msc

cheers, Paul

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Control PanelAll Control Panel ItemsAdministrative ToolsEvent Viewer

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Right click windows logo on task bar, select third item down.

Eliminate spare time: start programming PowerShell

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Tried the event viewer, got the following diagnostic after the latest explorer failure:

Initialization status for service objects.
C:WINDOWSsystem32sppwinob.dll, msft:spp/windowsfunctionality/agent/7.0, 0x00000000, 0x00000000

I should mention that this problem started after the latest major “upgrade” to win 10. I wish that MS had left the upgrade system to the users discretion.

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Try Free Commander and see if it exhibits the same symptoms?

http://www.freecommander.com

With this installed, I don’t use File Explorer any more.

Kevin

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Thanks or the tip, but I have already installed PowerDesk. I also ran chkdsk C: /F on the system drive. Since then no further problems.

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If chkdsk corrected problems you need to run further diagnostic on your C: drive.

--Joe

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Hi Joe
What would you suggest?

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I often get the file explorer locking up my system (Win 10 64 bit). I can’t access task manager due to the system lock up. Sometimes repeated attempts to close the file manager causes a complete redrawing of the desktop preceded by a quick transient blue screen, Sometimes I have to force a reboot by shuuting down the system manually (pressing the stop button.) Anyone else experiencing this problem.

We had this problem from the start of August on about 12 machines and tried all these suggestions without success including talking to the Microsoft help centre on a couple of occasions who wanted to do fresh installs.

simple solution was there was a mapped networked drive on the system that was powered off

re plug this mapped drive in and then dis-connect the drive

in Win 7 there is apparently a warning about powered off drives to alert the user

in Win 10 File Explorer and often Control panel options on some machines just goes into a loop

requiring a reboot and the problem then comes back unless you remove the drive in question

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I too have seen problems due to mapped drives, although the worst of those problems were in the Windows XP era. Windows 7 seems to be smarter about unavailable mapped drives.

Another problem I’ve seen with Windows Explorer is the ‘rescanning’ issue. For reasons I’ve never been able to fully discern, Windows will periodically decide to rescan the local volume(s). You can tell this is happening in Win7 because a coloured bar (it’s light green) overlays the address bar at the top. Windows Explorer can become unresponsive while this is happening and I’ve seen the scanning activity go on for several minutes.

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That scanning is probably being triggered by the task scheduler. Open Task Scheduler, expand Task Scheduler Library > Microsoft > Windows, and look for a task called Data Integrity Scan. On mine it says “Scans fault tolerant volumes for latent corruptions”. Disable, and see if it makes a difference. If that’s not it, there could be another task on the same list; there are many other tasks that run behind the scenes.

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I’m not sure that the scans are Data Integrity scans, but maybe so? Honestly, I’ve always assumed that these drive scans are the OS updating the volume index data in a cache somewhere.

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