Windows Vista Windows Explorer not Responding - Vista

Lately - last 2-3 weeks - Windows Explorer constantly gives me the old 'spinning blue circle' when trying to do almost any form of drag/drop or cut/paste copy/paste. I almost always have to open task manager and stop the explorer process. I have a Dell Optiplex 745 Intel Core 2 Duo E6600, 2MB RAM, ATI Radeon X1300, 160GB Seagate HD running Vista Enterprise. This has not been an issue until recently but has become very irritating. I've searched Microsoft's KBs for information but it seems all the articles refer to very specific error messages (of which I receive none) or problems that I don't seem to have. Any assistance is appreciated.

 

Windows explorer on Vista

Oopps! Make that 2 GB of RAM

 

I have the same problem, but only since I installed SP1. It is irritating, but IE will clear and then just sit there for a short time and finally disappear.

 

I installed SP1 when it first was available but seems this current issue started a while after that. I've never let it 'finish' on its own - get too frustrated and kill it manually.

 

Thanks Broni. Trying that now. Maybe a related item, but since the WinExplorer started acting up, the PC seems to 'hang' whenever doing a restart or shutdown. Just sits there and spins. Have to do a hard shutdown in order to get it to function again.
Thoughts?

 

That is happening to me as well, although it started a week or so before I installed SP1. However, now it happens at least half of the time. Perhaps another update causes this problem.

 

Click the Windows Orb (Start) > All Programs > Administrative Tools > Reliability and Performance Monitor and on the right, click on the drop-down arrow to see what program/service is accessing/using the CPU, Hard Disk, Network or Memory.

There may be a clue there, i.e. it could be a hardware error/retry and not explorer at all.

 

Windows Explorer is involved with running the file system. If I see problems with it, I run Error Checking (chkdsk) on the drives. Start -> Computer -> right-click on each drive -> Properties -> Tools tab -> Error Checking (you should not need to check the disk surface, but could if you think so). It may take several hours.

Also running a disk cleanup and defragmentation may help.

With any problems after installing a new Service Pack, I look for updated drivers. The drivers that may be involved are the chipset drivers or those related to drive controllers.

Matt

 

Windows Explorer Hangs

Well, after all the suggestions and such, the darn thing is still 'hanging' when trying to do cut/copy/paste/right click anything in Windows Explorer. This is getting really frustrating, and while I do like Vista, I may be forced to go back to XP. Any additional ideas will be greatly appreciated.