What is This all About?

Most users will think of Windows Explorer (Not Internet Explorer the browser application) as the program they use to access their files. In fact Windows Explore is much more than this, in simple terms it provides the graphical user interface(GUI) between the user and the operating system. It gives access to the all the programs including the control panel and various system utilities such as System Information, System Restore and the Management Console. If Windows Explorer freezes or cashes then you no longer have access to the Windows Taskbar and the Desktop icons amongst other important ways that you interact with your PC to make it do what you need. (Windows Explorer is also referred to as the shell which interacts with the core operating system).

Tip 4 may be the most important Tip as this helps to protect against fatal Windows Explorer crashes

Why Do You Care?

For a multitude of different reasons Windows Explorer may freeze or crash at any time. Windows XP is certainly more stable than earlier Windows operating systems but it still happens, particularly if you load lots of programs and give your PC a heavy workload. This is another reason why it pays to reboot your Windows OS fairly frequently, as the longer he system runs in any one session the more likely it is that it may freeze or crash.

Once Windows Explorer is no longer available then how do you access such things as the Shutdown Menu or your open programs that are still running?

What Can You Do?

First of all, except for the most inexperienced of users of a Windows OS will be familiar with CTL-ALT-DEL (or the 3 finger salute) where you press all 3 keyboard buttons at the same time as an emergency “get out of jail” solution.

By the way – if this doesn’t immediately work give it a minute after which you will need to use the powerswitch or restart button with all the possibilities of loosing data or file corruption. So only ever do this as a last resort!!!!

When you use CTL-ALT-DEL from a User Login/Password system you see the following screen:

(Click on Screenshots to enlarge)

This gives you several options which can be seen from the Button text in the screenshot which include shutting down or logging off the computer in an emergency. The one we are particularly interested in for this exercise is the Task Manager button. This activates the following window:

(Note – This shows the processes tab which I have customized to show the columns I want from the View – Select Columns menu item)

In a non-password protected system CTL-ALT-DEL takes you straight to the Windows Task Manager:

Here you can see there is an additional tab for users.

If you have a frozen or “Not Responding” explorer process the following tip should be followed. If Explorer has crashed go to Tip 3.

Tip 1 – CPU Overload – Explorer Frozen or “Not Responding” – End Process

Click on the Processes tab and then click on the CPU column (not CPU Time column) – you may need to click twice to sort the column so that the processes using the most CPU time are shown first. Make a mental note of the process using the most time if they keep changing and then click on the Image Name column to sort alphabetically. You can then click on the process with the left mouse button to highlight it and then use the End Process button in the bottom right of the screen to end the explorer process.

Alternatively you can right click on the explorer process which will show a context menu from which you can terminate the explorer process.

Warnings:

Take care ending some processes will be fatal and crash the OS

Before ending a frozen or “Not Responding” process give it a minute or two as the system may just be temporarily overloaded doing other things. If CPU activity is very high which you can see from the Task Manager overload is the likely cause

Tip 2 – Change Process Priority

Alternatively you can try lowering the Process Priority of the program that is using all the CPU time. So instead of killing the process as described in Tip 1 you can lower the priority by using the right context menu and setting it to Below Normal or Low:

Warning:

Do not set the process priority to “Realtime” as this process may then use all the available CPU time and lock you out from doing anything else with the system until it finishes or you manually reset the PC with the power or restart buttons which could cause data loss or file corruption.

Tip 3 – Restart Explorer Using Task Manager

Now go to page 2 for the rest of the post

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This entry was posted on Friday, July 4th, 2008 at 8:56 pm and is filed under Windows OS. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.