windows explorer freezing when deleting

[Anandajoti]

Dear Friends,

For a couple of weeks now I have been experiencing a problem when deleting
files in windows explorer (and in Free commander, which I also use).

Every time I try to delete a file explorer freezes up and I have to
eventually close it with task maanger. When I restart the file(s) have
actually been deleted, but of course it's a nuisance every time I need to
delete something.

I have XP home edition for more than one year and have not been experiencing
this problem before. I have checked for spyware/malware but everything
appears to be clean. If anyone has any suggestions I would be most grateful...

 

[Malke]

Dear Friends,

For a couple of weeks now I have been experiencing a problem when deleting
files in windows explorer (and in Free commander, which I also use).

Every time I try to delete a file explorer freezes up and I have to
eventually close it with task maanger. When I restart the file(s) have
actually been deleted, but of course it's a nuisance every time I need to
delete something.

I have XP home edition for more than one year and have not been
experiencing this problem before. I have checked for spyware/malware but
everything appears to be clean. If anyone has any suggestions I would be
most grateful...

Some ideas:

1. How much space is left on your hard drive? If the drive is too full, this
could cause the issue. Address this.

2. Do you do the normal maintenance of emptying your Temporary Internet/Temp
folders? If not, this could be the cause of the issue. Address this.

http://www.elephantboycomputers.com/page2.html#Maintenance
http://aumha.org/a/health.htm - Take Out the Trash

3. How are you deleting the files? If by right-clicking to get the context
menu, a third-party program may have insinuated itself into the context
menu and is causing the problem. Use the free ShellExView program to manage
context menus:

http://www.nirsoft.net/utils/shexview.html
Right-click is slow or weird behavior caused by context menu handlers -
http://windowsxp.mvps.org/slowrightclick.htm
Right click causes an error and crashes Explorer.exe after installing
Windows XP SP2 - http://www.winxptutor.com/sp2/divxcrash.htm
Manage the context-menu entries for folders, drives and Namespace objects -
http://windowsxp.mvps.org/context_folders.htm

Malke

 

[Anandajoti]

Dear Malke,

Thanks for your kind response. I eventually used System restore to back the
computer up a couple of weeks (it took more than one go at this to get back
far enough), so I can't try out your suggestions, but will bear them in mind
in case the problem re-emerges. Thanks!