Extremely bad shell bug in WinXP

[Mike Matheny]

I discovered this after receiving many fake MS emails supposedly containing
a "patch". My antivirus had been catching these and deleting them, but then
I started getting some that got through. I thought this was a new variant,
and to test it I saved the file to the desktop. I then right clicked on the
file to scan it with NAV - the cursor changed to the hourglass and NEVER
quit. After some more looking, I realized the .exe file was only 76 bytes
long, and after viewing it with a DOS program, saw that it was completely
empty. To test my theory about XP locking up in the above manner, I created
a new, empty text file on my desktop, and renamed it to test.exe. Then I
right clicked on it - well, after about 10 minutes of absolutely NO response
from the OS I pressed the reset button. I have tried this on 2 different
PC's so far with the same result. This is extremely bad error handling. Can
or does anyone want to confirm this?
Thanx,

 

[Crusty \(-: Old B@stard :-\)]

I just did as you did. The file opened instantly. It deleted instantly.

 

[Steve C. Ray]

I tried it too, Crusty, with exactly the same results as you. I see no bug.

 

[Mike Matheny]

OK, I tried it on a PC that didn't have NAV installed, and it did just as
you said. Maybe NAV is the culprit!

 

[Crusty \(-: Old B@stard :-\)]

I have AntiVirus 2003 installed.

OK, I tried it on a PC that didn't have NAV installed, and it did just as
you said. Maybe NAV is the culprit!

 

[Steve C. Ray]

Me too.

 

[Mike Matheny]

OK, I have 4 PC's. 3 WinXP Pro, all with NAV 2003, and a Server2003. On 2 of
the WinXP PCs, it locks up. On 1 of the XP PC's and the 2003 server, it
doesn't! The only shell extensions I have installed is QuickView Plus 6 on 2
of the WinXP PCs - and 1 locks up and 1 doesn't! Matter of fact, one of the
XP PCs that locks up is a clean install less than a month old, with nothing
special added to it! This is weird! Anyone have any ideas???

 

[Alex Nichol]

OK, I have 4 PC's. 3 WinXP Pro, all with NAV 2003, and a Server2003. On 2 of
the WinXP PCs, it locks up. On 1 of the XP PC's and the 2003 server, it
doesn't! The only shell extensions I have installed is QuickView Plus 6 on 2
of the WinXP PCs - and 1 locks up and 1 doesn't!

The trouble lies in one of the shell extensions: All that the explorer
shell is doing is pass the file name across to that. And it might be a
Propertysheet handler: one old Win9x Powertoy, the Target content one,
would cause a lock up if it was installed under XP. Such a lock would
happen immediately on a r-click, before taking any option, though. So
investigate the extensions, as seen by regedit, and remove them
selectively. I would not be at all surprised to find it was the Norton
one, not taking into account the possibility of a zero size file

 

[Mike Matheny]

But on another PC that has NAV 2003 installed, it works fine! I disabled all
PropertySheetHandlers under HKCR\*\shellex\propertysheethandlers by renaming
them all and rebooting, and it still locks up. It is definitely an
explorer.exe lockup. If I kill that with task manager, then re-run it to get
the desktop back, I have at least some control of my system then. I havn't
disabled the ContextMenuHandlers the same way yet (renaming them will
disable them, right?). There are no special handlers under the .exe entry.
Am I in the right place?

--

Mike Matheny

OK, I have 4 PC's. 3 WinXP Pro, all with NAV 2003, and a Server2003. On 2 of
the WinXP PCs, it locks up. On 1 of the XP PC's and the 2003 server, it
doesn't! The only shell extensions I have installed is QuickView Plus 6 on 2
of the WinXP PCs - and 1 locks up and 1 doesn't!

The trouble lies in one of the shell extensions: All that the explorer
shell is doing is pass the file name across to that. And it might be a
Propertysheet handler: one old Win9x Powertoy, the Target content one,
would cause a lock up if it was installed under XP. Such a lock would
happen immediately on a r-click, before taking any option, though. So
investigate the extensions, as seen by regedit, and remove them
selectively. I would not be at all surprised to find it was the Norton
one, not taking into account the possibility of a zero size file

 

[Mike Matheny]

It's PowerArchiver - if I disable the explorer context extensions, it works
fine - I have reported it to PowerArchiver people.

--

Mike Matheny

OK, I have 4 PC's. 3 WinXP Pro, all with NAV 2003, and a Server2003. On 2 of
the WinXP PCs, it locks up. On 1 of the XP PC's and the 2003 server, it
doesn't! The only shell extensions I have installed is QuickView Plus 6 on 2
of the WinXP PCs - and 1 locks up and 1 doesn't!

The trouble lies in one of the shell extensions: All that the explorer
shell is doing is pass the file name across to that. And it might be a
Propertysheet handler: one old Win9x Powertoy, the Target content one,
would cause a lock up if it was installed under XP. Such a lock would
happen immediately on a r-click, before taking any option, though. So
investigate the extensions, as seen by regedit, and remove them
selectively. I would not be at all surprised to find it was the Norton
one, not taking into account the possibility of a zero size file

 

[Alex Nichol]

It's PowerArchiver - if I disable the explorer context extensions, it works
fine - I have reported it to PowerArchiver people.

Thanks for letting us know - and glad it is at least working