Windows Vista Windows not responding ...

Hello,

I installed my copy of Windows Vista Ultimate in March 2007. It has been running smoothly up till now, because every day it occassionally is not responding. I get a message like "Windows not responding" and when I choose to close the non-responding program, the taskbar disappears and there are no icons on the desktop. It helps to log off and log in again until the next hang-up occurs.
I have not installed any software lately.

Can anyone of you tell me which tools of Vista can help me find more information about the failures?
I'd gladly give you detailed info about it, but I don't know where to look for any log errors.

 

There are no errors under "System" in the event viewer. However, under "Application" I found a lot of following entries.

Windows is not responding often when I right-click to use the context menu. This is very annoying.

Log Name: Application
Source: Microsoft-Windows-User Profiles Service
Date: 2007-08-14 09:29:41
Event ID: 1530
Task Category: None
Level: Warning
Keywords: Classic
User: SYSTEM
Computer: asusf3f
Description:
Windows detected your registry file is still in use by other applications or services. The file will be unloaded now. The applications or services that hold your registry file may not function properly afterwards.

DETAIL -
1 user registry handles leaked from \Registry\User\S-1-5-21-2990339942-2909837280-3653193616-1000_Classes:
Process 848 (\Device\HarddiskVolume1\Windows\System32\svchost.exe) has opened key \REGISTRY\USER\S-1-5-21-2990339942-2909837280-3653193616-1000_CLASSES

Event Xml:
<Event xmlns= "http://schemas.microsoft.com/win/2004/08/events/event ">
<System>
<Provider Name= "Microsoft-Windows-User Profiles Service" Guid= "{89B1E9F0-5AFF-44A6-9B44-0A07A7CE5845}" EventSourceName= "profsvc" />
<EventID Qualifiers= "32768 ">1530</EventID>
<Version>0</Version>
<Level>3</Level>
<Task>0</Task>
<Opcode>0</Opcode>
<Keywords>0x80000000000000</Keywords>
<TimeCreated SystemTime= "2007-08-14T07:29:41.000Z" />
<EventRecordID>8832</EventRecordID>
<Correlation />
<Execution ProcessID= "0" ThreadID= "0" />
<Channel>Application</Channel>
<Computer>asusf3f</Computer>
<Security UserID= "S-1-5-18" />
</System>
<EventData Name= "EVENT_HIVE_LEAK ">
<Data Name= "Detail ">1 user registry handles leaked from \Registry\User\S-1-5-21-2990339942-2909837280-3653193616-1000_Classes:
Process 848 (\Device\HarddiskVolume1\Windows\System32\svchost.exe) has opened key \REGISTRY\USER\S-1-5-21-2990339942-2909837280-3653193616-1000_CLASSES
</Data>
</EventData>
</Event>

 

It looks like it is Windows Explorer as the error reads "Windows is not responding ". It not only occurs when using the context menu popping up when right-clicking the mouse button. It's hard to say when it may happen.

What else could I try? I wouldn't like to reload Vista from scratch...

 

Thanks, Arie. I'm going to investigate it further by following your advice.