Win Explorer crashes when checking drive properties

[John Smith]

I have an IBM Thinkpad A31p that came with preinstalled Windows 2000. A
couple of months ago the hard disk had to be replaced and I had to use the
IBM Recovery CD to reinstall the OS and utilities. I'm up to date with
Windows Update (i.e., SP4).

Since reinstalling, I've had a number of problems that I hadn't had before,
one of which is:

When looking at "My Computer" in Windows Explorer, right-clicking a drive
letter and selecting Properties causes Explorer to crash ("explorer.exe has
generated errors and will be closed by Windows"). There is no problem
right-clicking folders or sub-folders; the Properties dialogue opens fine.
It's only with drive letters (this is a single 60 GB hard drive partitioned
into two drives).

Thanks for any help...

 

[Steve Duff [MVP]]

From the multiple posts you have listed here
I'm going to hazard a guess that you may have
some hardware issue still going on, or you
have a permissions problem on system files
someplace on the new drive.

Windows creates these alternate profiles when
it thinks the name it wants to use is already used by
another account, or it believes that profile to
be corrupt and unusable -- in the latter case it
normally tells you at logon.

You need to start by looking in the system and
application event log. There will undoubtedly be
events in there that may help in narrowing down
the cause.

Steve Duff, MCSE, MVP
Ergodic Systems, Inc.

 

[John Smith]

Steve - thanks for the reply, and there are indeed events with the same
times as the extra folders.

Two of these extra Administrator folders were created this morning,
Administrator.OSWALD.003 at 7:58am and Adminstrator.OSWALD.004 at 9:02am.
Event Viewer shows two errors in the Application Log at 7:58:08am and one in
the System Log at 7:59:10am. Here are the details:

1. Application Log
Event Type: Error
Event Source: Userenv
Event Category: None
Event ID: 1000
Date: 20/08/2004
Time: 7:58:08 AM
User: NT AUTHORITY\SYSTEM
Computer: OSWALD
Description:
Windows cannot load the user's profile but has logged you on with the
default profile for the system.

DETAIL - The process cannot access the file because it is being used by
another process.
-----
2. Application Log
Event Type: Error
Event Source: Userenv
Event Category: None
Event ID: 1000
Date: 20/08/2004
Time: 7:58:08 AM
User: OSWALD\Administrator
Computer: OSWALD
Description:
Windows cannot copy file C:\Documents and Settings\Default User\NTUSER.DAT
to location C:\Documents and Settings\Administrator.OSWALD.003\NTUSER.DAT.
Contact your network administrator.

DETAIL - The process cannot access the file because it is being used by
another process.
-----
3. System Log
Event Type: Error
Event Source: DCOM
Event Category: None
Event ID: 10010
Date: 20/08/2004
Time: 7:59:10 AM
User: OSWALD\John
Computer: OSWALD
Description:
The server {9F92FFA3-40D1-475A-9323-A39C705DAB86} did not register with DCOM
within the required timeout.

Thanks for any additional light you can shed.

 

[Madhur Ahuja]

I have an IBM Thinkpad A31p that came with preinstalled Windows 2000.
A couple of months ago the hard disk had to be replaced and I had to
use the IBM Recovery CD to reinstall the OS and utilities. I'm up to
date with Windows Update (i.e., SP4).

Since reinstalling, I've had a number of problems that I hadn't had
before, one of which is:

When looking at "My Computer" in Windows Explorer, right-clicking a
drive letter and selecting Properties causes Explorer to crash
("explorer.exe has generated errors and will be closed by Windows").
There is no problem right-clicking folders or sub-folders; the
Properties dialogue opens fine. It's only with drive letters (this is
a single 60 GB hard drive partitioned into two drives).

Thanks for any help...

hello

Have you installed any third party programs, like *folder properties* or
*folder sizes* which insert their tabs into the property pages. If yes
uninstall them and see if it helps.

--
Winners dont do different things, they do things differently.

Madhur Ahuja
India

Homepage : http://madhur.netfirms.com
Email : madhur<underscore>ahuja<at>yahoo<dot>com

 

[Steve Duff [MVP]]

Somebody has -- or at least Windows thinks something has --
your profile's ntuser.dat open when you aren't logged on. You aren't
running remote access sessions are you? Otherwise this
really shouldn't be happening.

Try creating an alternate account with full administrator
privileges and use that. See if you still have a problem.
You may have to resort to re-creating the profile folder
for the Administrator account.

Other than this, I'm going to suggest something I don't
normally resort to, which is to pop in your Windows CD
and run a "upgrade" to restore any missing settings.
(This will preserve your overall configuration, but you
will need to run service packs and critical updates back
on after you do this.)

This doesn't sound like a hardware problem any longer, but
it does sound very much like the aftermath of one.

Steve Duff, MCSE, MVP
Ergodic Systems, Inc.

 

[John Smith]

Steve - I don't think I'm running remote access sessions... (pls forgive a
stupid question, but I'd know, wouldn't I?). I have a 3-computer workgroup
connected by a wireless router & use my building's LAN connection for
internet access.

Are the DCOM errors in the system log related to these Userenv errors in the
Application log?

I created a new acct and made it a member of the administrators group and
used it for a bit last night. No new bad Administrator.xxx folders were
created, so I guess that might be a fix... only I'll have a lot of
reinstalling to do.

How would I go about recreating the profile folder for the Administrator
account?

If I use the Win2K CD to "upgrade" (isn't there a "Repair" option or is it
the same thing?), will I have to reinstall software as well as service
packs, or just service packs? I'm working under a deadline right now & would
want to hold off on major repairs until my project is finished.

Thanks again for your help!

 

[Steve Duff [MVP]]

You should be able to get most of your data copied from the
old profile folder tree to the new one just using Windows Explorer
to copy and paste across.

Most of it will be obvious -- copy the contents of the old "\desktop" folder
to your new "\desktop" folder to get your icons back, "my documents"
to "my documents", "Start Menu\Programs" to "Start Menu\Programs",
and browse through the other folders looking for Outlook .pst files
and the like.

Make sure to enable hidden/system file viewing in explorer
so you can see all the contents.

You will lose settings in your old ntuser.dat -- for the most part this
won't affect installed software since those installs are global for
all users and the information is contained in the system registry
and folders.

Steve Duff, MCSE, MVP
Ergodic Systems, Inc.