Is there a 'repair' option for Windows Explorer?

[Sam]

My brother is running an AMD 3000+ XP HE SP2 computer.

Until recently, all movie file formats played fine - Wmv, Xvid, Divx, etc.,
but
now when using Windows Explorer to view a folder containing movie files, as
soon as the file is highlighted or clicked on, it begins to play (in either
WMP 10 or RealPlayer), but then a window appears stating "Windows Explorer
has encountered a problem and needs to close". This then shuts down the
program playing the video file, plus the Explorer window. It seems to have a
major problem particularly with Xvid
files.

Windows suggests contacting Xvid.org, but other than that offers no
solution or error codes... can anyone help please? The codecs are all up to
date.

Many thanks.

 

[David Candy]

Explorer hosts lots of other programs. Even a folder window of C:\ involves explorer hosting an file viewing program. Most standard stuff comes with windows but apps add their own crap in to provide support for formats. So an app might add a codec (only indirectly used by explorer), a context menu extension, a thumbnail generator, an icon generator, a propert sheet dialog, and lots more.

So you can try running explorer under ntsd and hope the crah pinpoints the dll that caused it and that will tell you the program that caused it.

ntsd explorer

Press G to start the program after loading and G to unload after exiting.

Or keep it open when it crashes (don't click any dialogs) and type

cmd /k tasklist /m /Fi "Imagename eq explorer.exe"

Look up each file one by one and work out where it came from and if something to do with video rename it and see if it helps. Don't rename MS files.

 

[David Candy]

You probably can't run either program I mentiopned in home. Use MSInfo32 - Software Environment - Loaded Modules instead of task list. Unfortunately this is all modules not just ones being used by explorer.