Forum Discussion
ddwashbu
Feb 18, 2020Copper Contributor
File Explorer crashes
Has anyone had issues with File Explorer crashing without any warnings or error messages lately? Seems to have started about 2-3 updates ago. I'll be working on something else - like Edge, Excel, et...
- Feb 18, 2020
Use Autoruns from Sysinternals to check for Non-Microsoft/Non-Windows explorer.exe extensions. Many programs sadly install file explorer extensions that can make explorer.exe unstable.
You can easily disable (uncheck the checkbox in autoruns) all extensions that are not from Msft and reboot. Test if the issue is resolved. If yes, re-enable single extensions and test again until explorer.exe begins to crash again.
You can download Autoruns here: https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/downloads/autoruns
ddwashbu
Mar 02, 2020Copper Contributor
Excellent suggestion!
I killed a couple of contextmenuhandler entries - MS ShellStitcher, Macrium Reflect, Intel Optane Rapid Storage Technology, Acrobat, and Nvidia - using autoruns and that seems to have fixed the issue.
I tried to kill several other Acrobat-related entries but Acrobat is very persistent and recreates them. That's something that's ALWAYS bugged me about Acrobat, how much crap it creates in the context menu that are difficult to permanently get rid of.
HotCakeX
Mar 02, 2020MVP
Yeah, try Foxit reader, it's lightweight and feature rich, better than Acrobat