Crash upon accessing View menu in Windows Explorer

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Guest

I currently display my files as "Tiles" in Windows Explorer. When I click on
the View Menu to change the display to "Details," my computer shuts down.
What is the problem? I am running Windows XP with SP2 on a Toshiba Satellite
A35-S159. No help from Toshiba on this one.
 
Don't know I can answer this but can I ask a couple of questions.

When you says "Shuts down" do you mean it literally goes through a fairly
normal shut down procedure or just seems to lock or crash?

Does this happen with any folder window you have open?

Have you tried going to tools>folder options and under both the general and
view tabs hit the "Restore defaults" button?

Then try the apply to all folders button - you can try that particular
folder before you do this and see if it helps if you like. as long as hit
apply for every stage back out.

I did see this happen once with an accidentally created .mp3 file that had a
ridiculously long name - I mean ridiculously long too - so you might also
consider that.

Another odd-ball thing can be video drivers, unlikely as it sounds. If your
"Windows display settings" demand a particular font for viewing folders and
that's broken or there's a driver problem displaying it it can cause an
instant crash. Seen similar with bad / damaged video drivers in IE too. Have
you recently had any drive updates or similar?

I mention these two because they seem so unlikely but as a last resort can
help. Have also seen disabling the RPC service do similar, what's broken is
not necessarily related to file browsing because "Explorer" also displays
you desktop in a manner of speaking so trouble that affects "Explorer" can
have worse effects than one might expect :)

Charlie
 
On Sat, 15 Oct 2005 08:01:04 -0700, "Luis"
I currently display my files as "Tiles" in Windows Explorer. When I click on
the View Menu to change the display to "Details," my computer shuts down.
What is the problem?
Click to expand...

Most likely a toxic persistent handler, or some other code running
underfoot that is facilitated by the change. The best tool to manage
this, may be NirSoft's Shell Extension Viewer, from here...

http://www.nirsoft.net/utils/shexview.html

Windows Explorer is the shell that runs not only Windows Explorer, "My
Computer" etc. but also the Desktop and Start Menu. It is a namespace
browser that browses folders, not a file system browser that browses
drives and directories alone.

Namespace objects make up the heirarchy you see in the left pane in
Windows Explorer view. Anything on the desktop that is not a file,
folder or shortcut is likely to be a CLSID-defined namespace object.

In the right pane of Windows Explorer view (and the only pane in "My
Computer" etc.) are the contents of the folder being viewed, and a
different set of code can be invoked here. Your choice of view can
determine whether such code is invoked, or not.

When you switched from Tiles (thumbnails?) to Details, you may have
invoked a lot of extra code that populates the details colums when
folders are viewed. Additional code may come into play when a
particular file is hovered over or highlighted, to populate a ToolTip,
the Status Bar, or a "more info" area of "View As Web Page".

There's a safety failure aspect to this, in that this code may "run"
material in files before you have indicated any desire to "open" them.

What Shell Extension Viewer will do, is list various code extensions
that are integrated into the shell, so that you can reversably disable
them. Start with all the non-Microsoft extensions, and if that works,
"test-to-break" by re-enabling them one by one.

I expect malware to take an interest in this integration opportunity,
if this hasn't happened already - so I'd also advise you to do a
formal virus scan, e.g. from a Bart PE CDR boot.
 
Charlie and cquirke, I really appreciate your replies. I have tried all of
your suggestions and have learned some things in the process, but believe it
or not, I am still dealing with this issue. However, there are a couple of
other "facts" I can provide that can hopefully get us closer to an answer.

1) The problem occurs not just in Windows Explorer and My Computer, etc.,
but in Internet Explorer.

2) I was mistaken. The shut down occurs not when I pull down on the View
menu to Details, but when I simply click on the View menu. The sub-menus do
not even appear before I get the blue screen with the stop code (I paste the
Event Details for the latest shut down below).

3) It turns out that I only have this problem when I'm logged in under my
own account (which is the only Administrator account on the computer). When
I log on as my wife, I do not have this problem.

4) I checked which Shell Extensions (using the Shell Viewer program you
recommended, Charlie) were running under my log-on and under my wife's.
There was only one that was running under my account and not hers -- $Address
(IE Toolbar), a Shell Browser UI Library. When I tried to disable it, a
similar Shell Extension called $Address (System), also a Shell Browser UI
Library, which WAS running under my wife's account, was also disabled. I
could not disable or enable one without doing the same to the other. When
these two extensions were disabled, I still experienced the Stop Error.

5) I also checked MSCONFIG for different Startup Applications and Services
that were running under the two accounts. The Services were identical, but
my wife was running two Applications that I wasn't--Windows Messenger and
AOL. I made these startup items on my account but I continued to receive the
Stop Error.

6) I have tried to upgrade my graphics driver but I get the Stop Error
almost as soon as I start the installation program.

7) I have an installation CD for a new printer I purchased. After some time
running the installation program, I also get the Stop Error.

Any ideas would appreciated. Here is the Event Log for the latest shut
down. Note that on each shut down, the third paramter changes, but always
seems to be a variation on ba4. All the other paramaters and the basic error
code of 10000008e remain the same.


Event Type: Error
Event Source: System Error
Event Category: (102)
Event ID: 1003
Date: 11/19/2005
Time: 7:33:52 PM
User: N/A
Computer: LAPTOP
Description:
Error code 1000008e, parameter1 c0000005, parameter2 8056e2a2, parameter3
b1fffba4, parameter4 00000000.

For more information, see Help and Support Center at
http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/events.asp.
Data:
0000: 53 79 73 74 65 6d 20 45 System E
0008: 72 72 6f 72 20 20 45 72 rror Er
0010: 72 6f 72 20 63 6f 64 65 ror code
0018: 20 31 30 30 30 30 30 38 1000008
0020: 65 20 20 50 61 72 61 6d e Param
0028: 65 74 65 72 73 20 63 30 eters c0
0030: 30 30 30 30 30 35 2c 20 000005,
0038: 38 30 35 36 65 32 61 32 8056e2a2
0040: 2c 20 62 31 66 66 66 62 , b1fffb
0048: 61 34 2c 20 30 30 30 30 a4, 0000
0050: 30 30 30 30 0000
 
Actually the suggestion wasn't mine but never mind....

I think before going further I'd be tempted to create another account and
make it a member of the administrators group, just in case something else
goes wrong.

Your desktop is provided by explorer functionality and if you lose the
admins desktop you are in deep er, trouble.

In any case, if the same thing happens with another admin account it may
change what everyone is looking for.

Charlie
 
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