some Help with Hanging Folders!

Hi, having some problems, which seem to be recurring(noticed it happens every now and again after new new formats[winxpprosp2]), but not sure what exactly is causing it.

the major programs which i always have on are nod32, ZA, and nvidia nforce 4 drivers 6.86

the problem is when i open a folder, it just hangs there, no hour glass, no cpu activity, no hdd activity, no errors.
if i close it the usual "this has stopped responding, end now" box pops up. if i end, the window refreshes(taskbar and everything disappears and comes back).

Some things that make the contents of the folder show when its in that state are:
opening another folder
clicking on start button and going to the "most recent documents" link
right-clicking desktop and choosing refresh

these dont always work, and sometimes results in all the folders hanging, and the taskbar not working.

Any ideas on what it could be?
Anything i can check while this is happening?

It is really annoying, any help appreciated.

 

What operating system and ver. are you using?

 

xp

 

i did some testing with process explorer, and it seems that whenever i click on an avi file, it doesn't close the handle under explorer.exe
If i right click any avi file and choose properties, the properties box never comes up.
After several avi files still being used by explorer.exe, folders start to hang.

It got to the point where if i just highlighted an avi file, the Data execution Prevention dialog box would pop up saying windows had to close explorer

so how can this be fixed?

 

Hi there iHz

Excuse me, I would like to help but what exactly this statement means?

Do you want to say that your problems are starting to happen after a fresh format and reinstallation of WinXP? Or did I miss something?

BTW, these kind of problems you are having can be pretty much caused by anything (hardware issue, driver, improper uninstallaiton of an app, bad codec, even malware) and you should certainly add as much info on your system as possible. For a start, just answer to my first question.

Regards.

 

hey the seer,

just means, that I've noticed, sometimes after i install winxp, this happens, other times after a format and install it doesn't. So basically I don't know what step is causing the problem(this is from memory over past yrs and several installations).
And usually the common programs always installed are the ones i mentioned in first post, nforce, ZA, nod32.

But anyway, I'm really going to have to format now, i can't use the pc anymore as i can no longer click avi files as mentioned in previous post.

It probably just bad install of Zalarm, If its still happening after i re-install xp, I'll post back.

 

Hi iHz

If your problems start immediately after a fresh XP installation, I daresay that you have a RAM issue. But as I really doubt that you have such unstable hardware, the most probable explanation would be that you improperly uninstalled an application which hooks a handle in explorer.
nForce are the drivers for a mobo chipset, thay work on a lower level than explorer, so no handle there, and I don't think they have such a massive bug which kills your folders. Taskbar, context menu and folders are all one same thing - explorer.exe. What exact version of ZA are you using? It's been a long time since I used ZA, but both ZA and NOD hook their handle (context menu on-demand scan) and there is a possible overlap also, as you may be using two AVs. That overlap shouldn't be causing your nightmares, but if you did an improper uninstall of either ZA or NOD, when you open explorer (folder) your registry still has the info on handle and desperately searches for that handle. This may be the most probable reason why explorer cannot continue and hangs. Since you mentioned an .avi file in your third post, I wouldn't exclude a possibility of a bad codec either. In fact I wouldn't exclude any possibility yet.
Now, I didn't want to suggest you to do a format, my initial idea was to prevent this, but as you wish to do it anyway, install XP from a boot CD, nForce drivers (so you can enable your ethernet) and try to do nothing more, not even Windows Updates. By all means repost back as soon as possible, so we can take further steps.

My regards

 

Well its not that bad, as I've got images, so its not really a new new install.
I did an image before i installed ZA, graphics drivers, and the nvidia sw ide drivers, so i will restore that one and check.

I installed za security suite trial 70.30.200.

So maybe its a codec? Folders seem to hang Only after i have highlighted or clicked avi files, If i dont go anywhere near avi files, nothing hangs, no matter how long i use the pc.
my first image has a/v editing apps, so hopefully its not them.

thanks again.

edit- spoke too soon, just got the "data execution prevention - explorer error" after closing firefox, I havent browsed or opened avi files yet.........

 

unbelievable, you're right, never exclude any possibility!
Never would have thought it was the divx codec.....
the reason i never suspected that particular codec, was because i had this problem BEFORE i installed any divx codec AND after too.
after restoring a few images, and it still happening, i was contemplating starting over, but thought I'll re-install xvid and divx codec, just to make sure. And after installing both again, the problem persisted, but then went away after a FINAL restart, so lucky i did that restart!

anyway problem solved, for now that is, don't trust anything anymore.
explorer still using 33mb, but it seems ok for now, hopefully it doesn't morph into something else

Thanks again 'Seer.

 

Hello again iHz.

I took some liberty browsing through your previous posts. Sorry for that, but I noticed that you recently converted FAT32 to NTFS an then created ATI image of that disk. Is this the same system you are now having problems with? If so, are you absolutely certain that both operations (conversion and imaging) passed without any issue, in other words, how much confidence do you have in your primary image. BTW, I noticed that in this thread you stated the following:

Does that mean that you don't have a boot CD of XP installation?

XVid (1.0, 1.01, 1.1) and DivX (3.11, 5, 6) codecs are popular codecs commonly used, so I don't really think they they are the real culprits. Seems to me they colide with something else on your system.

Codecs do not require restart to work properly, so this behavior is very suspicious to me.
But if you say that everything seems fine now and your system hums, I will nevertheless watch this thread, and you should feel free to return here if other issues emerge.

Regards

P.S. RAM usage of 30mbs is normal for explorer, mine is very similar.

 

no, those computers aren't mine, and the laptop had no cdrom or floppy, which is why i couldn't install.

Ok, its still does it, but not as much as before. basically earlier, any avi i tried to check properties of, windows would not show, and then explorer started to give problems.
Now(after installing divx and xvid codec again) the avi properties of some, but no all, don't show, and when this happens, i can no longer view any avi properties after that, and explorer usually jumps from 18-25mb, to 35-40mb.
Its something to do with either the codecs, those specific avi files, but definitely avi and explorer.
Any programs i can use to pinpoint the problem, process explorer or ntfilemonitor?


thanks again.

 

ok, i think the problem is solved now.

basically for whatever reason winxp is having trouble getting the properties of many avi files i have(whether they are corrupt or not, i don't know, they still play fine).
Now when I click on or try to get the properties of these random avi files, it wont complete the request, there after ANY avi file i choose will not show the properties(even the ones that did show previously). And from then on any file i click to get properties takes a long time to show(video, audio, folders, text etc), and windows becomes sluggish.

So after long searches I came across a registry file that handles the avi properties, and after deleting it, the problem is gone, because now explorer doesnt even try to get the properties of any avi file.
This means i cant view the bitrate, width etc of the files, but thats no loss right now, there's other ways for that.

So hopefully thats it, it looks like it.

thanks for your help along the way The Seer.

 

You mentioned above that you also have NOD32, I assume you deactivated the AV part of the ZA security suite? If not, I could see where that would cause some problems, two AVs and this OS Firewall thing they have all running at once. I tried the ZA 7.xxx version with KAV integrated and ditched it after around 20 minutes, it was buggy as hell and was using around 120MB of memory just sitting there doing nothing.

Try restoring that image and then just install the graphic drivers. The Nvidia IDE drivers aren't really necessary and some people have reported having problems with them. If it works allright, then leave off ZA and consider some other solution.

 

nah, it happened even without ZA installed.