Windows Explorer Has Encountered A Problem

polybear

Hi,
My Packard Bell Pc seems to have developed a habit of coming up with a message " Windows Explorer has Encountered A Problem and needs to close. We are sorry for any inconvenience". It's done it occasionally in the past but it's recently become worse, usually when using Outlook Express - often every evening. I'm very careful about security etc. and have Zonealarm Internet Security Suite plus other security applications etc. (though only one antivirus software to avoid conflicts). Everything is kept updated etc.

When I've had the problem in the past I did post "Highjackthis " logs for analysis and everything came up clear.

I have the Packard Bell restore disk but presumably this would wipe all my files, programs etc. as well as my operating system - so that's a real last resort.
Any ideas please? Thanks.

polybear.

Zahc

Have a look here.. http://support.microsoft.com/kb/293623

Zahc

polybear

Hi,
Thanks for the replies.

1. The Microsoft fix didn't fix.

For information the following information came up, in case it means something to someone:
AppVer: msimn.exe
AppVer: 6.0.2900.2180
ModName: ntdll.dll
ModVer: 5.1.2600.2180
Offset: 00011e58

2. Hi dps. I don't have an XP disc, only a Packard Bell System Restore Disk, which I believe starts the whole pc up from scratch.
So if I understand correctly I can try the following:
Start>Run>type sfc/scannow>enter
What does this do please?
Thanks.

polybear

BeerBelly

A lot of viruses can also do this.

Does your computer want to restart at any point or do you just have to terminate explorer.exe in taskmanager?

Make sure your virus defs are up to date and do a scan.

If clean, then you could have some corrupt windows files or something recently installed has modified something on your PC which is stopping explorer running correctly.

Debt_Free_Chick

Looks like OE is causing the problem

Try this fix from Microsoft

polybear

Thanks for the replies.
I've run sfc /scannow - It didn't ask for my XP disc. It went right thru' to the end; no errors etc. were displayed.

Fo info, prior to using scannow, the computer didn't want to restart at any point; it was simply a case that OE would close itself down. All virus defs. are up to date and scans are clear.

I'm not sure if sfc /scannow has cured the problem yet - I'll report back to let you know.

polybear.

jamalfatty

It may be totally unrelated, but I had a similar problem for a while which was being caused by not having correct codecs for some video files.
Windows tries to display a thumbnail image of the video file but if the codec is missing/damaged then explorer will spit its dummy out and restart.