Windows Explorer.exe process hangs on login

[aaronIT]

Can anyone possibly help me with this problem?

At my place of work, we run Windows XP pro Sp3 as our baseline image on
laptops and desktops. However for some time I have been trying to track down
an issue that occurs when users login on the domain.

The problem is that after a user has authenticated themselves at the login
screen, and the profiles/GPO have finished processing; all the users see is
their wallpaper with no icons/start menu – it all just appears to ‘hang’ when
the windows login process is running... the problem will fix itself if you
leave the windows logon run by itself for about 5-10 mins. To get around this
‘wait time’, you can press ctrl+alt+delete and access the task manager and
then start a new task for ‘explorer.exe’ – the windows login seems to
continue to load immediately, showing the desktop icons/start menu etc.

I have goggled this problem for a while and other people seem to be
experiencing this problem on a variety of service pack versions of windows.
We also experience the problem across different hardware models (HP dc7100
sff, Hp Dc7800 sff and Hp 6710b laptops etc).

Thanks in advance,

aaron

 

[ushere]

My computer recently started doing this too.. well kinda it loads the
desktop and all the icons but the start menu bar hangs for a long
time... usaly how i avoid getting anoyed this is turn on comp in morn
and go find sumthing to eat lol. but its gotten to the point where i
think explorer is causes other program to crash as well. If any1 knows
how to fix this please help!!

check for malware (malwarebytes)

 

[Gerry]

Have a look in the System and Application logs in Event Viewer for
Errors and Warnings and post copies here. Don't post any more than 48
hours ago.

You can access Event Viewer by selecting Start, Control Panel,
Administrative Tools, and Event Viewer. When researching the meaning
of the error, information regarding Event ID, Source and Description
are important.

HOW TO: View and Manage Event Logs in Event Viewer in Windows XP
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/308427/en-us

A tip for posting copies of Error Reports! Run Event Viewer and double
click on the error you want to copy. In the window, which appears is a
button resembling two pages. Click the button and close Event
Viewer.Now start your message (email) and do a paste into the body of
the message. Make sure this is the first paste after exiting from
Event Viewer.


--


Hope this helps.

Gerry
~~~~
FCA
Stourport, England
Enquire, plan and execute
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

 

[John John - MVP]

We need a bit more information.

For starters, to post your relevant error messages double click on the
error message to open it then click on the small clipboard icon at the
top right of the Event Properties window, the icon looks like 2 paper
pages and is below the arrows icons. Then you can paste the error
message to your post, it will look something like this:

Event Type: Information
Event Source: EventLog
Event Category: None
Event ID: 6005
Date: 4/4/2009
Time: 6:51:15 PM
User: N/A
Computer: FRONT-OFFICE
Description:
The Event log service was started.

We only need current *Error* messages.

Secondly give us more information about your problem computer. Is this
a laptop? Is it used to connect to a domain? Or is this computer just
connected to a small home workgroup network?

For the time being what we can tell is that you are having a "Browser
War", you have more than one machine set to be the Master Browser, this
forces a browser election every time these Master Browsers come online.

Simply put, the Master Browser is the computer that has the "browse
list", this is a list of all the computers and resources on your
network. The browse list is used by NetBIOS applications, for example
when you look in your "Network Places" the list of resources shown there
is obtained from the browse list supplied by the Master Browser. When
computers connect to the network they announce their presence to the
Master Browser and the Master Browser adds them to the browse list.
When more than one machine is configured to be Master Browser an
election process takes place to determine which machine should be the
Master Browser.

The Master Browser is set at the registry key:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\Browser\Parameters\

IsDomainMaster

Possible settings for the value are:

True - Is the master browser
False - Is not the master browser
Auto: Resolve through browser elections (default)

Set it to true for the machine that you want to be the master browser
and set it to false for the other machines, because laptops are often
connected/disconnected from the network these machines are poor
candidates for master browser duties, make sure that these machines are
not set to be master browsers. Another way to stop these browser
elections is to disable the Browser service on the machines that you do
not want as master browser.

That being said, I don't think that these browser elections would hang
Explorer on login, or at least not for any considerable length of time.

John

 

[Gerry]

You ignored this suggestion and posted incomplete error reports making their
interpretation much more difficult.

A tip for posting copies of Error Reports! Run Event Viewer and double
click on the error you want to copy. In the window, which appears is a
button resembling two pages. Click the button and close Event
Viewer.Now start your message (email) and do a paste into the body of
the message. Make sure this is the first paste after exiting from
Event Viewer.

HIDKbFlt.SvcDesc% service - This could be the remnants of malware.
Alternatively what is your computer make and model as it can a keyboard
driver failing?

Are there any yellow question marks in Device Manager? Right click on
the My Computer icon on your Desktop and select Properties,
Hardware,Device Manager. If yes what is the Device Error code?

Select Start, Control Panel, Administrative Tools, Services and right click
on Server and select Properties. The StartUp type should be Automatic. Is
it?

Download and install the User Profile Hive Cleanup Service
Download details: User Profile Hive Cleanup Service
http://snipurl.com/5b61

UPHClean v1.6d readme.txt
http://snipurl.com/ko8m

When you have dealt with these suggestions restart your computer and see
what error reports remain.

--


Hope this helps.

Gerry
~~~~
FCA
Stourport, England
Enquire, plan and execute
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

 

[Gerry]

Dreadmyst

Is the computer a desktop or a laptop?

The error looks like an orphaned start-up entry.

To identify what loads when you boot use Autoruns (freeware from Microsoft).

http://www.microsoft.com/technet/sysinternals/ProcessesAndThreads/Autoruns.mspx

With Autoruns you can uncheck an item, which disables it from
starting,or you can right click an item and then delete it. If you
uncheck youcan recheck to re-enable the item. It is a much safer
approach than editing the Registry and better than using msconfig..
Another useful feature of the programme is that you can right click an
item and select Search Online to get information about the item
selected.

The error could relate to a Dritek Keyboard Filter Driver. Start by looking
at the entries on the Drivers tab. You could find it there. It may have a
note saying "File missing".


--


Hope this helps.

Gerry
~~~~
FCA
Stourport, England
Enquire, plan and execute
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~