XP Pro - right click context menu hangs up

[Rob]

My right click context menu does not work when I try to use it on a drive
letter. When I am in the explorer mode my right click menu operates as it
should. That is until I try right clicking on any of my drive letters C:\,
D:\, E:\ and so on. Instead of operating properly at those times, the hour
glass appears and remains until I kill it via the task manager. The right
click menu displays the very same behavior when I try using it in the "My
Computer" mode. Everything functions as it should until I try it on a drive
letter. I have not made changes of any kind that I can relate to this
behavior. I've researched help files, NGs, etc. and have not found the
answer. My OS is Windows XP Pro. Can someone please help?

Many thanks in advance, Rob

 

[Don Taylor]

My right click context menu does not work when I try to use it on a drive
letter. When I am in the explorer mode my right click menu operates as it
should. That is until I try right clicking on any of my drive letters C:\,
D:\, E:\ and so on. Instead of operating properly at those times, the hour
glass appears and remains until I kill it via the task manager. The right
click menu displays the very same behavior when I try using it in the "My
Computer" mode. Everything functions as it should until I try it on a drive
letter. I have not made changes of any kind that I can relate to this
behavior. I've researched help files, NGs, etc. and have not found the
answer. My OS is Windows XP Pro. Can someone please help?

Many thanks in advance, Rob

There have been a string of folks reporting very similar problems
to what you are reporting. Some find that anything which uses
Windows Explorer (Recycle bin, folder shortcuts, control panel,
etc) all have a similar problem. Some find that right clicks are
their major problem. Some find any click. Some find it crashes
on open. Some find it refuses any clicks. There are some claims
but I've been scanning the thousands of postings on SP2 and I don't
think you will find any with "the fix" for this, at least yet.

But, some find it will work when you boot in safe mode.

And, some find it will work when you create a new user and switch
to that user to try it.

Some claim it is all spyware and viruses but I haven't seen any
posting that confirmed this for the Windows Explorer problem.
I carefully and repeatedly checked, no viruses or spyware and my
windows explorer locks up every time

Some claim it is Divx or Spy Sweeper installed that is responsible
for this but others have it, don't have those and some seem to have
those and have no problem. I don't and it locks up.

Some claim it is "ShellExtensions", little accessory gadgets that
sort of script extra cute features. The advice for that is to
install free ShellExView and to try (carefully) disabling these
features one at a time, if turning one off doesn't do anything then
turn it back on and try again. I did that with all 75 at once and
it made no difference at all. One person sent me mail saying that
disabling one extension he had did appear to fix his problem.

You can escalate to Microsoft, go to
support.microsoft.com/windowsxpsp2
and give them all the details and clues and patterns you can find.
There is no guarantee that their analysis or directions will be
correct or even not make it worse. They told me I must "have some
corrupted files, repair windows back to install state and then
reinstall SP2 twice while in Safe mode." Before I did that someone
posted the "switch user" workaround that let me get by temporarily.
I sent email saying that if it worked for one user then it seemed
less likely it was "some corrupted files" and asked if they still
wanted me to blow windows away. They have not reponded to that in
a number of days now. But I can imagine what it is like inside now.

I hope this helps. If someone tells you to try something and it
doesn't help then please make a posting so we can start accumulating
what suggestions don't do any good.

 

[JClark]

I hope this helps. If someone tells you to try something and it
doesn't help then please make a posting so we can start accumulating
what suggestions don't do any good.

Hello Don:

Thanks for posting such a nice overview of what seems to be a common
problem, as I found during my own search. You requested posting of
what does not work, but I'll take the liberty of posting what did work
for me. My experience is added here for whatever it may add to the
body of knowledge which is forming.

I had just put together a new system with some fairly old parts and an
OEM windows XP OS. After installing a number of my favorite programs,
I noted suddenly that the right mouse click for context in Windows
Explorer led to a perpetual hourglass, requiring reboot, or multiple
efforts at logging off. I had trouble even copying the shellexview
file because right click didn't work, and neither did highlighting the
file with left click and using "edit" because clicking "edit" locked
up the box as well. So I just ran shellexview from a USB memory
device, having downloaded it from another functioning (W2K) computer.

I found my own solution with ShellExView. The nirsoft website is hard
to get to for some reason.

http://www.nirsoft.net

The overview of the shell context handler problem is here:

http://windowsxp.mvps.org/slowrightclick.htm

What shellexview does is to list all the registry entries which have
to do with the context menu shell handlers. You can disable them
....they say "one at a time" and see what effect it has on the problem.
I did it a lot quicker by bisecting the list, disabling half of the
entries in one fell swoop, rebooting and trying the right click on a
desktop shortcut. It worked, so I knew I just had to narrow it
down...just as we used to do with msconfig. Then I kept bisecting the
list until it was just a few and did those one at a time. The problem
is that you have to reboot between tries to get accurate testing of
the results of your disablings. I didn't find logging off to be
consistent.

My problem shell context handler turned out to be "eraser"...I
installed an older version which may not have been OK for XP.
Tolvanen, by the way, who wrote eraser, stopped supporting it and now
it is handled by
www.heidi.ie/eraser/
and their version 5.7 does work with XP.

Good luck to all with this frustrating problem.

Jack