windows explorer in w2k hangs on right mouse click

[ratbag]

It started on Wednesday – I was away on Mon and Tue. The only diff between last week and this week is that another user has logged on (apparently unsuccessfully).

Now when I right click in windows explorer, right click on the ‘Start’ button, or right click on ‘My Computer’, windows explorer hangs (be it the shell or the 'explorer explorer' – I can kill the process, and restart it but the problem still exists. It is SO :swear: frustrating.

I could not find anything on the web that would fix this.

Does anyone have a solution to this that does not involve re-installing?

[svvampy]

If the apparent casue is another users' shite you could try purging the local copy of their user directory. You should also check for errant processes and try to discover what is happening when the pc is hanging. Is the PC appearing to hang because of the CPU maxing out or waiting on I/O or leaking memory or what? Make sure the other guy hasn't installed any shell extensions and that you don't have a virus scanner that will scan on access - which slows down explorer.

[tikdoph]

Just out of curiosity, does it happen if you boot in Safe Mode?

[ratbag]

Originally posted by svvampy
If the apparent casue is another users' shite you could try purging the local copy of their user directory. You should also check for errant processes and try to discover what is happening when the pc is hanging. Is the PC appearing to hang because of the CPU maxing out or waiting on I/O or leaking memory or what? Make sure the other guy hasn't installed any shell extensions and that you don't have a virus scanner that will scan on access - which slows down explorer.

Ok I did this yesterday...

- I deleted all his crap
- checked for rogue processes -- none that I can see
- full virus check -- nothing
- CPU is not maxing out, and I'm not leaking memory
- virus scanner does check on access -- disabled it and it was the same issue.

I had a look at explorer process, and compared it to one that works... Nothing out of the ordinary. It peaks IO at the start and then settles down as if it worked – much the same as the 'valid' one. :confused:

I'll look into the extensions next...

Any other ideas?

[svvampy]

Well I did have a similar problem that was apparently due to old shortcuts/setting for reflection ftp, after migrating to a new laptop. When I deleted the folder (after being directed to by tech support) everything became good again. I didn't mention it before as it is an extrememly unlikely set of circumstances which should in any case be rectified by deleting the other users settings.

Have you checked the event viewer for any hints?

You could also try erasing your profile and recreating it. That seemed to be a common solution back when I worked on the helldesk.

[ratbag]

Doesn’t look like it is shell extension related. I uninstalled and installed anything that I thought could have caused the problem.

When logged on as local admin it works fine -- thus it has to be something with my profile...

The plan is to re-create the profile and see if this fixes the problem -- if not, I think it will have to be a clean re-install. :(

It will now have to wait until next week. I will post an update then.

Thanks for your suggestions.

[RASPUTIN]

You hit the nail right on the head. Deleting your profile should work.

[MisterBishi]

This is a WinXP article but it sounds like it may apply here too.

819101 - Temporary Decline in Performance Occurs When You Right-Click a File or Folder in Windows Explorer (http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;819101)

[ratbag]

Re-creating the profile seems to have resolved the problem. Thank you to all who gave suggestions.

/me goes back to sorting through old crap and copying it to the new profile… :yawn: <--- damn no yawn smiley.