Windows Explorer Has Encountered A Problem

[Guest]

Hello, I realise this has been reposted before in various forms but none of
the answers (not that there seems to be one 'true' answer?) seem to suit.

I'm running windows xp home, 512mb Ram, 120GB HD, pentium 4 processor.

Whenever I go into my documents/my music/my pictures its hit and miss
whether or not they stay open. Usually I'll get the error 'Windows Explorer
Has Encountered A Problem and Needs To Close'. Details of the error are:

AppName: explorer.exe AppVer: 6.0.2900.2180 ModName: ntdll.dll
ModVer: 5.1.2600.2180 Offset: 00011c48

I've tried scanning for viruses, spybot, a 'regcure' programme, defrag,
system restore, pretty much everything!

I'm getting to the end of my tether because its got the point where I
basically cant stay in my documents long enough to even copy them to a safe
place etc. I'm not exactly pc literate (in the sense of taking them apart
etc) so telling me to do this that and the other in DOS or whatnot I'm afraid
I don't think I'd understand. Am I right in thinking I need to uninstall SP2?
Or any other suggestions?

Sorry for long winded query but please, I'm getting desperate

 

[Roy]

Have you tried booting in safe mode to see if the problem goes away? If
it does you might check and see if you are loading so many programs at
boot time that you are short of spare RAM.

 

[Guest]

Stupid question - how do i boot in safe mode? Also how would i see what is
and isn't loading up on startup - assume this would be the ctrl/alt/del task
manager and view the processes?

Also don't know if this has some effect but I quite regularly pretty much
max out my HD leaving only (sometimes less than) a gig or so free - I do try
and keep it free but could the massive use of HD be a cause?

Many thanks for the reply!