Windows Explorer Has Encountered a Problem

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I brought this problem to the forum in early December, and I didn’t get much of a response. I am submitting it again in hopes that someone has the courage to tackle it.

The problem is that, in XP Home, I get an intermittent “Windows Explorer has encountered a problem and needs to close. We are sorry for the inconvenience.” message, and the toolbar, Start Menu, and any open explorer windows reset themselves. It also takes some of my tray apps with it.

The error usually appears when I change or move an item on the Start Menu, but it has also happened when I close application windows, or sometimes just click on a button in a window. If I do any extensive file manipulation in Windows Explorer, I will get the error. I have also seen it happen when the computer is just sitting there with no apps open–I am doing ABSOLUTELY NOTHING on the computer at the time!

The last time I posted this, someone responded telling me to run checkdisk and defrag the drive. I did that and it seemed to help for a few days, then it started getting worse again. I have run chkdsk and defrag a number of times since then with no good results.

I have removed everything possible from the startup areas while troubleshooting this thing. The only processes that were running were those that XP starts, and it still happened. It seems to be a somewhat random event–I can’t replicate it by any one action or sequence of actions, although I can almost always make it happen by dragging and dropping a couple of items in my start menu.

Every time it happens, I send an error report to MS. Of course I’ve never heard anything back. I have also tried a couple of Win XP repairs with no luck.

My hardware is a Dell Dimension L933r (Windows XP compatible), and I had installed XP on the hard drive after it was reformatted.

I have searched the MS KB and haven’t found anything close on the subject. Has anyone else had or heard of this problem? I’d really appreciate some advice.

John

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>The error usually appears when I change or move an item on the Start Menu

Could you elaborate a bit on this process. Are you dropping, or removing, a shortcut on the desktop START button?

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I think (but I am not sure) that extra instances of Explorer causing problems are related to AutoPlay mode on your CD. Also you can disable “Notify Microsoft” option – it does nothing useful for you (Microsoft only collects information with no intention to respond). To do this, right-click “My Computer” icon and choose Properties (or hit Windows key and Pause/Break key simultaneously on your keyboard) and click Advanced tab, then Error Reporting button and check “Do not send…” option.

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Also you can disable “Notify Microsoft” option – it does nothing useful for you (Microsoft only collects information with no intention to respond).

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[/indent]Although I don’t use this feature, it is actually useful, because crash information is sent to Microsoft and they can analyze the trends in what is causing faults in XP. The recent Office XP service pack is a prime example of what this technology can do – targeted, effective service packs that fix real problems. But as Woody stated eloquently in the latest WOW, I don’t trust Micro$oft, and I won’t be sending them even a shred of my data.

You can look through what will be sent, and for the most part it is very innocuous – but it could be used to identify a specific machine. Given the volume of crash reports that go into the databases in Redmond it’s unrealistic to think that the intention of Error Reporting was to contact the end user – they’d rather you call and cough up the credit card number, per incident. Capitalism at its finest.

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“I think (but I am not sure) that extra instances of Explorer causing problems are related to AutoPlay mode on your CD.”

Does this mean that AutoPlay mode should be on or off?

As luck would have it, about 2 weeks ago I changed my AutoPlay settings from ON for audio and data CDs to OFF for both. It didn’t affect the problem.

And I’m not sure what “extra instances” means in this context.

Thanks for your reply.

John

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What I ment, sometimes when AutoPlay is set to “Open folder to view files” and unable to do it (CD is damaged or formatted improperly), hidden instance of Explorer still running in background, even when CD is already ejected. Fortunately, it is not a case for you.

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What I mean is: renaming or moving a shortcut from one place to another within Start>Programs.

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Have you tried running the Internet Explorer repair tool? I’m suggesting this becase that functionality started appearing in Windows when IE 4 came around with the “Desktop Update” that integrated web functions into the shell. It’s worth a try at the very least.

Click on Start — Run and enter this:

%windir%System32rundll32.exe setupwbv.dll,IE5Maintenance “C:Program FilesInternet ExplorerSetupSETUP.EXE” /g “C:windowsIE Uninstall Log.Txt”

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Mark,

I will certainly try your suggestion and post the outcome. One question though. I am of course running IE6, but your command line in part states, “IE5Maintenance.” Does it make any difference?

Thanks

John

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RE: the IE5 reference in that command syntax – no, it shouldn’t, but if it does, change it to a 6. I haven’t tested this on XP but it worked this way on both a Windows 2000 and Windows NT 4 system, both with IE6 installed. IE6 is really a glamorous XP-ized version of 5.5 anyway so the version number is kind of misleading IMHO – much like Netscape six is really 5, but since it is a complete re-write of the code maybe it’s Netscape 1.0?

Just trying to muddy the waters a bit – you should be just fine with it the way it is; but do check the WINDOWS directory. An NT/2000 installation upgraded to XP will likely reside in WINNT instead.

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Mark,

I tried to run the command that you suggested. It gave an error:

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“Error loading setupwbv.dll

The specified module could not be found.”

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Any thoughts?

John

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Ouch, yah, I tried it and got the same result. Whoopsie. But I seem to repeat this mantra in the Lounge a lot and I believe it applies here since IE6 is a part of XP from the word go….run the System File Checker and see if that gets it.

Start — Run — SFC /SCANNOW

And I think we both learned something this time around….you can’t teach a new dog old tricks!

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I’ve seen your mantra, and I’ve run sfc a couple of times. No luck.

John

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Hi Mark,

What does the /SCANNOW after SFC do?

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The /SCANNOW switch will force it to run immediately after you hit the enter key. The other options are as follows:

• /SCANONCE Scans all protected system files once at the next boot.
• /SCANBOOT Scans all protected system files at every boot.
• /REVERT Return scan to default setting. (i.e., if you set it to SCANBOOT and want to turn that off)
• /PURGECACHE Purges the file cache.
• /CACHESIZE=x Sets the file cache size.[/list]You can also see these options by typing SFC /? at a command prompt.

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You’ve done a windows update to download the patches? You’ve checked all your hardware manufacturers site’s for the latest drivers? You don’t happen to be running Roxio’s EZ CD Creator (it can create problems if you don’t have the latest update).

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Err Msg: Error Loading Setupwbv.dll. A Device Attached to the… (Q192591)

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Thanks anyway, but the article doesn’t apply to XP and IE6, which is what I have.

John

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but does it apply to *your problem*? just because the kb might say “applies to…” and your program is not the one listed, it does not mean the cause and solution is not applicable.

are you having the error mentioned in the kb? do the symptoms fit yours? can you try the fix?

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I don’t think it applies in this case. Apparently the setupwbv.dll file that it is looking for doesn’t exist in XP–I did a search on my HD for the dll and it came up empty.

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Remember that with “Dell Dimension L933r (Windows XP compatible)” the compatible is ONLY if you bought the XP from DELL. They are known to have DELL only drivers on disk where MS will not have them. This is how some OEM’s keep the $ comming to them and not someone else.

You might search the DELL site, they may have some help

DaveA I am so far behind, I think I am First
Genealogy....confusing the dead and annoying the living

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“They are known to have DELL only drives on disk where MS will not have them.”

I’m not really sure what you mean by the above statement, but I HAVE searched the Dell site. They state that the system is WinXP compatible. They say nothing about the need to buy WinXP from Dell. I did do the BIOS update that they recommended, but that was the only change I had to make to bring the system into compliance.

When I installed XP, it loaded all of the correct drivers and I have no hardware issues in device manager or system information. What else could be different?

John

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Sorry, is should have read:
“They are known to have DELL only drivers on disk where MS will not have them.”

DaveA I am so far behind, I think I am First
Genealogy....confusing the dead and annoying the living

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Eurika!! I found the cause of this problem!

I posted this problem twice on the board, and no one could give me an answer. It took me 6 months, but I finally solved it.

I finally had enough time to completely reload my system from scratch. As I was reloading my apps, I kept trying to get the system to fail. When I loaded one utility program that I have been using since Windows 95 and 98, the system gave me the same error condition that I had been getting before. I was able to do a restore to get the system back where it was before the installation, and everything has been working fine since.

The name of the utility is “Split Shell Extension v2.0a for Windows95 and Windows NT 4.0.” It is a file splitting app for cutting large files down to floppy size. It installs as a shell extension, which apparently XP has a problem with.

Just though I’d pass along what I have learned in hopes that I can ease someone else’s frustrations some day. Watch out for those older apps!

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Thanks, That just shows what a old prpgram will do. It is things like that do NOT get tested in beta to see if it will work or not.

DaveA I am so far behind, I think I am First
Genealogy....confusing the dead and annoying the living

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