2 instances of explorer.exe

[thatoneguy24]

hey i was taking a look at my friend's computer today because its been running slowly... and i noticed that there are two instances of "explorer.exe" running. now im no expert on the internal workings of windows, but shouldnt there only be one of these running? if anybody has any advice/suggestions/corrections, I (and my friend) would greatly appreciate it

--thatoneguy--

 

[TheStu]

Are you sure they were both explorer.exe and that one of them wasnt iexplore.exe? Past that, i have no idea. Try killing one, see what happens

 

[thatoneguy24]

yeah i made sure. they were both explorer.exe even when i restarted. and i guess ill try that, i just didnt wanna cause any damage because its not mine to break.

 

[Cellulose]

Its a (most likely) trojan/virus, Google it and there are some removal methods - but first try running any anti-spyware, virus software and see if anything comes up

 

[t0mn8r]

There are always 2 instances of Explorer running.

One of them is your desktop. The other one is the visible Windows Explorer.

It is not a virus. If you want to know which is which, the instance which has more memory associated with it (after some use) is the visible user interface.

HTH

 

[bsobel]

Originally posted by: thatoneguy24
hey i was taking a look at my friend's computer today because its been running slowly... and i noticed that there are two instances of "explorer.exe" running. now im no expert on the internal workings of windows, but shouldnt there only be one of these running? if anybody has any advice/suggestions/corrections, I (and my friend) would greatly appreciate it
--thatoneguy--

There are at least one, more if the 'launch new windows in a seperate process' choice is selected.