Re: OT: Windows Explorer Crashing, Need Advice!
- From: "Peter Duniho" <NpOeStPeAdM@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Wed, 3 Aug 2005 10:28:11 -0700
"Jay Honeck" <jjhoneck@xxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:1123087382.566962.112790@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
> My office system has developed an infuriating problem that crashes
> Windows Explorer
What version of Windows? What are your other system specifications? Brand,
CPU, RAM, hard drive manufacturer & model, hard drive capacity (maximum and
currently used).
> -- and any other program that uses Windows Explorer.
> (This, unfortunately, seems to be many programs.)
Not sure what you mean here. Windows Explorer is a process unto itself.
Other programs don't use it, though they may use the same operating system
components that Explorer does. The "common file open dialog" is a prime
example.
> When I save photos to a directory, using either Photoshop or directly
> by downloading from my camera, that new directory will occasionally
> become inaccessible using Windows Explorer. If I click on that
> directory, WE will start to open it, display the icons (or the file
> names), and then lock up tight. It freezes everything, to the point
> where I must CTRL-ALT-DEL to clear things up.
That is strange. The only time I've seen that happen in Windows, the disk
was dying. First thing you should do, right now, is back up all of the data
you care about. You should be doing that anyway, but you should
*definitely* do it now that you're getting a hint.
You may not be dealing with a disk failure issue, but you don't want to run
the risk of not being prepared for one. And given what you're written so
far, that's certainly my top choice for a likely cause of your problem.
> [...]
> This problem is NOT universal -- most of the time, the directories are
> created without difficulty, and all is well. My guesses are that it's
> related to photo files (it's never happened with any other file type),
> perhaps to file size (many are quite large), perhaps to directory size,
> and perhaps to file name quirks. (It seems to happen more often with
> files that have unusual characters in them.)
Define "unusual", as it relates to the file size, the directory size (I
assume by this you mean the number of files in the directory), and the file
name.
I would be surprised if it relates to any of those things, but if you want
help, you will need to provide detailed information, not vague generalities.
Along these lines:
* the maximum file size on a FAT32 file system is 2 gigabytes (you can
see the file system being used by right-clicking on the drive in the My
Computer window and choosing the "Properties" option). A file smaller than
this shouldn't present any particular difficulty to Windows, nor have I ever
seen it do so. A file larger than the maximum simply will fail to be
created.
* There is a limit to the number files one directory can contain. But
again, all that should happen is you can't add files to the directory. The
limit is quite large (though I don't know it off the top of my head). I
have seen directories with thousands of files in them, and Windows handles
them just fine.
* I have seen files that have essentially what amount to random
characters in their names. Usually they come from some foreign language
source, often using Unicode where the data has been interpreted as ANSI or
something like that. You may have trouble doing a file search or other
activities that involve typing the name directly, but I've never seen random
characters cause Windows to have problems.
> This has happened before, but it seemed that the latest updates from
> Microsoft had cleared up the problem.
Possibly because an update included some component you rarely or never use,
and which got written to a damaged area of the disk. It's entirley possible
the update didn't so much fix a problem, as it simply temporarily obscured
it from view.
> Now, it's back with a vengeance,
> and I find myself unable to post pictures from Oshkosh because of it.
I thought you said this was "off-topic"? :)
> (BTW: Not sure if this is any help, but I *can* access the "bad"
> directories using DOS. Occasionally I've been able to copy the files
> into a new directory, and had everything work okay from then on...)
Can you define "DOS"? Do you literally mean you boot your computer with a
DOS disk, circumventing Windows altogether? Or do you simply mean you open
a command prompt window in Windows, copying the data from the command line?
If the former, then that tells me that whatever version of Windows you're
using, you aren't using the NTFS file system. That'd be a mistake right
there, though not one that is likely to be related to this issue. :)
In any case, knowing what you mean by "using DOS" may be helpful to someone
trying to offer advice as well.
> Is there:
>
> A) An after-market Windows Explorer replacement available? I'd like to
> ditch this dog if I could.
I believe that there are replacement shells, which you can use instead of
Windows Explorer. But frankly, I doubt you're running into any sort of bug
in Windows Explorer. The Explorer shell is the BEST tested component of
Windows, and I've never heard of any problem that was actually a problem
with the shell.
I don't know why you use the term "dog" to describe Windows Explorer, but
whatever issue you think is being caused by it, I believe it will turn out
to not be after all.
I don't know off the top of my head the names of any of the replacement
shells.
> B) Anyone ever heard of this problem? Is it due to a virus? Any kind
> of a work-around available? I cannot find anything about this problem
> on the Microsoft webpage.
I have not heard of any software problem related to the issue you're
describing. I can't rule that possibility out, especially the possibility
of a virus. I seriously doubt that you're dealing with a bug in the
operating system itself. Millions of Windows users do essentially the same
thing you're trying to do right now, myself included, without any trouble at
all.
Things you should do:
* First, back up all your important data
* Second, run the disk error checking utility (the method for doing this
will depend on what version of Windows you're using, though it will
generally involve running either "chkdsk" or "scandisk")
* Third, run a virus checker (if you don't own an up-to-date anti-virus
utility, you can go to Symantec's web site and use their free, web-based
checker)
* Fourth, if you haven't uncovered a problem yet, run the non-Windows
disk error checker provided by your hard drive manufacturer (you'll have to
go to the manufacturer's web site, and look around in the support
downloads...I've never heard of a hard drive manufacturer that didn't
provide a way to make a bootable floppy or CD that could check your disk for
errors and do other useful things).
If you get through all of that and still haven't found an issue, I'd say
your best bet would be to reinstall your operating system. It's a royal
pain, but it's something that ought to be done for any computer every 12-24
months anyway. Back up all the data you want to keep, format the drive, and
reinstall Windows. It is extremely rare but not unheard of for one or more
important files to become corrupted through an undetected disk error (which
can be caused by a variety of things, virtually always some kind of
transient hardware issue), and finding and fixing a corrupted operating
system file is most easily done by not finding it at all. :)
> Thanks!
Good luck. :)
Pete
.
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