Windows Explorer crashes randomly

[hedera]

I have a Vista Home Premium laptop with SP1 installed. I frequently operate
with a Windows Explorer window up, giving me access to my files. Almost
every day, I get an error message that "Windows Explorer has stopped
working". Then I get a "Windows is trying to find a solution" windows, and
after that the whole desktop blanks and renews itself. Fortunately this
doesn't usually interrupt what I'm doing with another program, but it's very
annoying, and if there's a fix I'd like it.

This is NOT a problem with Internet Explorer. It is Windows Explorer.
Here's the event manager entry from the last crash:

Fault bucket 1047868402, type 1
Event Name: APPCRASH
Response: None
Cab Id: 0

Problem signature:
P1: Explorer.EXE
P2: 6.0.6001.18164
P3: 4907e242
P4: kernel32.dll
P5: 6.0.6001.18000
P6: 4791a76d
P7: c06d007f
P8: 000442eb
P9:
P10:

Attached files:
C:\Users\Karen E. Ivy\AppData\Local\Temp\WERA26A.tmp.version.txt

These files may be available here:
C:\Users\Karen E.
Ivy\AppData\Local\Microsoft\Windows\WER\ReportArchive\Report09d0c546
--

It doesn't seem to matter what I'm doing when this happens, except that I'm
NOT usually using the Explorer window at that moment. Any suggestions??

hedera

Nature bats last.

 

[CBoom]

see my blog for a solution to your problem, has helped many people

http://computerboom.blogspot.com/2008/12/windows-explorer-crashes-in-several.html

 

[hedera]

I'll give it a shot and see what happens, thanks for the suggestion.

 

[zachd [MSFT]]

What changed before this broke?

Do you have OpenOffice installed? This looks suspiciously like it might be
a crash in that. If you do, check in with them for updates/fixes here...

 

[hedera]

WOW! This looks like clairvoyance - I do, in fact, have OpenOffice
installed. I wouldn't call that a "change" since I've always had OpenOffice
installed - I didn't want to put out the cash for a second license for
Microsoft Office when I bought the laptop, I already had it on my desktop.
I'll check their sites for updates - in fact, I could upgrade to version 3.x,
since I'm still running 2.x. Thanks for the suggestion!

--
hedera

Nature bats last.

 

[zachd [MSFT]]

Haha, thanks. I'm a "senior"(?) dev working alongside the Windows shell
team, so you tend to get a relatively good feel for where things are at.

Good to hear you're on your way to getting fixed up. =)

Cheers,
-Zach

 

[hedera]

Um, zachd, if OpenOffice is the cause, wouldn't you expect that a Windows
Explorer crash while I had an OpenOffice window up would take the OpenOffice
window down with it? Yesterday Explorer crashed while I was editing a
document in OpenOffice swriter, and the edit window stayed up during the
whole thing. Mind you, I've downloaded OO 3.0, I just haven't installed it
yet.

 

[zachd [MSFT]]

Not necessarily, since different aspects of any software operate in
different capacities.

If OO is injecting themselves into the shell, that would be a separate
process from the OO editor/writer window you have up. They would *not* be
expected to affect each other in any fashion whatsoever.

 

[hedera]

Interesting. Well, I've now upgraded OO on my laptop to version 3.0, I'll
see what happened. Nothing has crashed yet but it's been less than 6 hours!
--
hedera

Nature bats last.