Explorer.exe generates errors when folders are closed in Win2K SP4

[DS]

Hi all,

I've recently encountered a truly bizarre problem with my Win2K SP4
system. It's fully updated and normally quite well-behaved, but
recently, for reasons I can't explain, it's started to give me a lot of
the following errors:

"Explorer.exe has generated errors and will be closed by Windows."

At first these errors seemed random, but trial and error reveals a
pattern I cannot explain:

If I open four or more folders, then close them, closing the last
folder (almost) always gives me this error. Less than four folders
never gives me this error.

Windows consistently recovers in each case, but it's extremely
obnoxious behavior. I have searched the MS Knowledge Base, Google, and
Google Groups to no avail - I can't find anything relevant to my
situation (often third-party software I don't have is blamed for such
errors); the closest I've found is situation in XP where closing a
folder can give this error:

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;329692

....but since I'm not running XP (and since this is quite an old issue),
I can't imagine that this would affect me. Also odd, even when I wait
for Windows to log the error, I never see any record or details of the
error appear in drwtsn32.log or the Windows Event Log. Also of note is
the fact that I have not done any major installs / uninstalls that
clearly coincide with the appearance of this problem; I won't say it's
impossible that I updated something around the time it started, but
nothing significant comes to mind.

Any advice or suggestions (other than "don't open more than three
folders at once", "reinstall Windows", or variations thereof) would be
most appreciated. Thanks in advance,

DS

 

[DSchmidt76]

Just a brief update,

Turns out this can happen when fewer than four folders are open, it's
just less common; in any case the one thing that remains constant is
that the error only occurs when the last folder window is closed.

I tried closing all programs and ending all processes I could end, and
was still able to generate this error, but on the other hand it doesn't
seem to manifest itself in Safe Mode with Networking. I'm thinking
therefore that it *might* be a service that's causing this, so I'll
compare what services run in Safe Mode with those that run normally and
go from there.

With that said, I'm still curious as to whether anyone else has had
this problem / knows of a solution. Thanks,

DS