explorer *process* is bunged :(

will my installation survive

Published on October 27, 2006 By werewolf In Personal Computing

Hi all,

My computer has been freezing lately, probably some connection on the motherboard. I think I fixed that part of it, but...

During one session, it froze a number of times very quickly. During reboots, during ad-aware and virus checking sessions, etc.

It seems that now anything in the explorer *process* is verrrrrryyyyyy slow. Sys tray refreshes are slow, taskbar refreshes are slow, opening the start panel, opening windows explorer.exe (it loads quickly, but navigation is painful).

All ad-aware, spy-bot, virus scans are negative and I've used CCleaner.

Applications seem to be running well, but if I use an open/save dialog box and try navigating somewhere, it slows down. Very slow. Go make a sandwich and a cup of coffee slow.

I tried to set a restore point to a date prior to this all happening, but it didn't help. Same problems.

I REALLY don't want to have to re-install the OS, but what other options are there? Is there a way to "re-tune" the explorer process?

Is there anything I can check in the registry, are there any proggies which can do this? Does the system recovery option in the disk handle this?

**update** I just updated FastOne viewer and winamp and the installations were flawless. However, when winamp fired up, I can't do anything with it. Clicking the playlist button did nothing, media library same thing. Can't even move it around the desk top. Have no idea if this has anything to do with my problem or if winamps messed up.

Hope this isn't too much information

I dl'd something using Firefox and when it was done I clicked "open folder". Explorer came right up (I performed those updates mentioned above) and while I had explorer going, I clicked the 'up' button and explorer moved up one folder level. I did this all the way up that one drive. When I clicked 'up' again it went to 'My Computer' and did it's crawling through molasses thing again.

Also, if I right click on something and my mouse hovers over the 'send to' item, I have to wait a couple of minutes before anything happens.
**end update**

Do any of you gurus have any suggestions? I really need to fix this asap.

I thank you so much in advance

David

Comments (Page 6)

werewolf

on Oct 29, 2006

hmmm coffee and donuts

and OMG yrag, what a great tutorial!!

So here's the deal. I needed to find out if it was hardware or software. I had one of those duh moments when I woke up yesterday, but had too much to do yesterday to try it out.

*werewolf looks down at his feet and shuffles a bit...* I have linux on dual boot (hmmm no embarassed emoticon)

I fired it up and opened as much as I could possible open including 3 different instances of the file browser all browsing on my ntfs disks, music player and a video player. Not one single problem.

I realize that linux drivers may not stress the hardware in the same way XP does, but there ya go.

I'm going to give that installation tutorial a shot. I had no idea I had an option like that.

Zubaz...I have indeed bled on it.

Thanks for hanging in there. will be back after.

yrag

on Oct 29, 2006

I have linux on dual boot

werewolf

on Oct 29, 2006

yeah, that's what I did too.

I already have a slipstreamed sp2 install I made with n-lite, but it's not going exactly the way his tutorial is reporting.

I never got a lot of the DOS part install screens he mentioned.

I'm either going to end up with 2 installs or I'm going to have to reinstall my software, or I might end up with something else

oh well...will report later what ended up happening.

werewolf

on Oct 29, 2006

ah yes, well crud. Not only do I have 2 installs, but I don't have the grub installer anymore to get into linux. sigh. do you, by any chance have a quick way to put that back in there without reinstalling ubuntu again?

sigh

sigh

sigh

werewolf

on Oct 29, 2006

mein got en himmel

is there anyway to delete the new install?

werewolf

on Oct 29, 2006

man...you're not going to believe this

I booted into the original install and everything is working fine now.

If I could just get rid of that new install... ?

werewolf

on Oct 29, 2006

can I just delete the folder c:\windows.0 and delete the entry for it in the boot.ini file?

that doesn't give me back the grub loader but...

yrag

on Oct 29, 2006

Oye........

I can't figure out how you got Windows to install on either partition with another OS there....if it's on it's own partition, just delete it.

As to Grub: WWW Link (Boot Managers)

Knock yourself out.......please

werewolf

on Oct 29, 2006

it's not on it's own partition, it installed on my existing partition. In the boot.ini file it's called multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS.0 and there is, of course a corresponding folder on my c: drive called \windows.0 along with the original \windows folder.

yrag

on Oct 29, 2006

WWW Link #20

werewolf

on Oct 29, 2006

lol... you are simply amazing

I found a couple of entries in google, but not that article, which, of course, is the one I needed.

well...off to fix the grub. yrag...I can't thank you enough for your time. I'm not exactly sure how this thing got fixed, but it did and that's what count's.

going to reboot and see if it is still fixed. i really should just leave it running. never turn it off again ever for the rest of its life.

oh well, life is short.

werewolf

on Oct 29, 2006

lol (or not)

got an error saying that the hardware abstraction layer dll is missing or corrupt.

i should have known it wasn't going to just fix itself. I don't think I'm going to just be able to replace the hal.dll

yeesh

werewolf

on Oct 29, 2006

thhpt...that was easy. that file wasn't corrupt. bootcfg /rebuild fixed it.

yrag

on Oct 29, 2006

The partition # in boot.ini was probably wrong, it just corrected it. You should be good to go.....

yrag makes the sign of the cross.....

werewolf

on Oct 29, 2006

just burned the ulimatebootcd iso. hopefully I can get my linux boot back and all will be well.

sure wish I knew how that weirdo install fixed my original problem. there should not have been any files touched from the original install.

who knows.

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