• Explorer.exe Won't Open
    7 replies, posted
Here is my error [IMG]http://i.imgur.com/weeefcP.png[/IMG] Background information: Windows 7. A month or so ago, my computer, upon opening Windows Explorer, would not be able to "find" my harddrives or files. It would just have a magnifying glass icon spinning over "Computer" and "Documents" and such. Killing Windows Explorer, the "clean" way (Shift,Ctrl on Start menu) or the "rough" way (Task Manager) and restarting it would fix this issue until it popped up again. Well, today Windows Explorer actually [B]froze[/B] and I had to press "Close Now". Upon restarting Explorer.exe, this happened. Steam, and other programs think I have 0B of disk space. However, in something such as MS Paint, I am easily able to explore my computer through the Save/Open prompt and everything looks OK. [IMG]http://i.imgur.com/Ccss1bX.png[/IMG] I've run sfc /scannow twice with no errors. Remote Procedure Call is started as well as RPC Locator. However, I cannot restart RPC, which many solutions say to do. Rebooting my PC is my last option, because I'm actually working on an animation project and I'm sort of "in the groove". I can start games and programs, but I just can't open fucking explorer.exe.
Have you tried a virus scan? It's odd that sfc /scannow didn't fix it, so it could be another program in the background causing a problem. Also try booting in safe mode and see if explorer.exe runs in there
[QUOTE=djjkxbox360;43730706]Have you tried a virus scan? It's odd that sfc /scannow didn't fix it, so it could be another program in the background causing a problem. Also try booting in safe mode and see if explorer.exe runs in there[/QUOTE] I am currently running a scan with Avast!. Once it's finished, should I attempt to cold boot normally or just restart in Safe Mode?
Try safe mode. If there is no problem there, run combo fix, malware bytes, and adw cleaner. If problem still persists, post back here.
Alright I attempted to shut off the PC, but Windows wouldn't go past Logging Off, presumably because some process was holding it back, which I feel like was causing the Remote Procedure Call error. I held the power button to hard boot it off. I opened it up, de-dusted it (was planning to anyway) and booted in Safe Mode with Networking. Windows Explorer popped up fine, but my External HDD -- which all of my files rely on -- was not present. I felt that a file on the harddrive was causing this error. I shut down the PC and reconnected the External and now it's working normally again... I feel stupid because I should've rebooted in the first place, however I tend to avoid rebooting my computer because I'm always in a workflow. If this error appears again, what do you think could've caused it?
I'm not sure on what would have caused it. Could have just been some sort of connection error. I don't think Seatools works on USB drives, so try using HDtune and run an error scan on it. Make sure to uncheck quick test.
Run a SMART analysis on the external drives. I've seen Windows act wonky because of a failing HDD. You can obtain these SMART programs from either your harddrive manufacturer, but they all do the same trick when you run the test. [url=http://www.seagate.com/support/downloads/seatools/]Seagate Seatools[/url] [url=http://support.wdc.com/product/download.asp]Western Digital Lifeguard[/url] Search for your product or just click on any HDD and obtain Lifeguard [url=http://www.almico.com/speedfan449.exe]Speedfan[/url] [url=http://sourceforge.net/apps/trac/smartmontools/wiki]Smartmontools[/url] *Command line based, there is a third party GUI somewhere out there though.
Hey guys, by the way, this was caused initially becuase I had to kill explorer.exe as you may read. The reason I have to kill explorer.exe a lot is because when I open a folder, the file tree won't show and it just has magnifying glasses all over the left pane and files don't have their proper assossciation icons. Killing and restarting explorer.exe fixes this issue until it happens again. Is there a permanent fix? I've googled for ages. For example, it'd look like this [IMG]http://i.imgur.com/A2h2Car.png[/IMG] but everything would have magnifying glasses as if it were searching.
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