Cannot close one Explorer window

  • Thread starter Thread starter Alex Wenzel
  • Start date Start date
A

Alex Wenzel

Hi,

for a few days now, after a while of using my XP SP2 box, I keep
getting a single Explorer (not IE!) window that I cannot close
anymore. Just one window, but not always the same folder or size or
anything remarkable. I can resize or move this window or navigate in
it, but every potential way to close it (button, taskbar etc.) fails,
although nothing seems deactivated, and I get an error sound (Ctrl-W
does not give a sound, but neither does it work). Other windows do
open and close fine, including child windows of the stubborn one.
The only way to close the window is to shut the machine down.
Everything similar I can find on the net refers to IE, not Windows
Explorer.

Any ideas?
 
Alex Wenzel said:
Hi,

for a few days now, after a while of using my XP SP2 box, I keep
getting a single Explorer (not IE!) window that I cannot close
anymore. Just one window, but not always the same folder or size or
anything remarkable. I can resize or move this window or navigate in
it, but every potential way to close it (button, taskbar etc.) fails,
although nothing seems deactivated, and I get an error sound (Ctrl-W
does not give a sound, but neither does it work). Other windows do
open and close fine, including child windows of the stubborn one.
The only way to close the window is to shut the machine down.
Everything similar I can find on the net refers to IE, not Windows
Explorer.

Any ideas?
Click to expand...

Try to press ALT + DEL + CTRL to bring up the Task manager, do you see a
process using or hogging the CPU?, what is it?.
Look in the Event Viewer for error message or log that indicate unresponsive
app.
Use these two utilities to see what applications/Programs running in the
background:
"Process Explorer for Windows v10.21"
http://www.microsoft.com/technet/sysinternals/utilities/processexplorer.mspx

"AutoRuns for Windows v8.61 By Mark Russinovich and Bryce Cogswell"
http://www.microsoft.com/technet/sysinternals/ProcessesAndThreads/Autoruns.mspx
HTH.
nass
 
Hi,

for a few days now, after a while of using my XP SP2 box, I keep
getting a single Explorer (not IE!) window that I cannot close
anymore. Just one window, but not always the same folder or size or
anything remarkable. I can resize or move this window or navigate in
it, but every potential way to close it (button, taskbar etc.) fails,
although nothing seems deactivated, and I get an error sound (Ctrl-W
does not give a sound, but neither does it work). Other windows do
open and close fine, including child windows of the stubborn one.
The only way to close the window is to shut the machine down.
Everything similar I can find on the net refers to IE, not Windows
Explorer.
Click to expand...

Are you saying some unexplained Explorer windows appears on the desktop and
you can't close it (and does it appear when the logon?), or are you saying
as you open various Explorer Windows suddenly one of them can't be closed?

If the former download Autoruns from MS and run it to see if anything jumps
out at you. Get it from here (but note the link to the process utilities is
not working at the moment):
http://www.microsoft.com/technet/sysinternals/default.mspx

If the latter then have you tried a system restore to a time before the
problem appeared?
 
Are you saying some unexplained Explorer windows appears on the desktop and
you can't close it (and does it appear when the logon?), or are you saying
as you open various Explorer Windows suddenly one of them can't be closed?
Click to expand...

What I mean is the latter, one of the Explorer windows I opened cannot
be closed.
If the latter then have you tried a system restore to a time before the
problem appeared?
Click to expand...

Unfortunately, I cannot identify a restore point where it is both safe
to say the problem had not yet appeared and I won't use any software
and system updates that were installed in the meantime.
 
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