Question Explorer crashing - Windows 11

[QueBert]

Windows 11
13600k
IGPU
Z690 MB

When I try to open Explorer, I get the spinny icon, then it crashes and reloads. If I right click on the desktop it does the same thing.
I haven't had any issues with the computer in a long time. I'm not 100% sure when this started happening exactly. But I know it worked a few days ago. All I've done since is install the latest Service Pack for Windows & Razer software for my mouse.

I thought it had to be either the SP or Razer software, so I uninstalled both, but it's still crashing.

I ran sfc /scannow in admin it didn't find anything
I ran dism /online /cleanup-image /restorehealth it said everything was good
All my drivers are up to date
I tried creating a new user account, it's crashing the same.
I don't want to do a clean install of Windows, I'm not familar with reinstalling Windows 11, but I did about 8,500 repair installs of Windows XP. So I did the repair reinstall of Windows, it booted up to the system looking the same, and it's still crashing.

I Googled this endlessly and am seeing the same stuff I mentioned trying. I know there has to be a way to fix this without a clean install, but I'm completly lost. Anyone have a suggestion for me? Everything else seems to be working fine

 

[C1]

Ugh !

Unfortunately no advice other than to nuke the storage drive (ie, write zeroes to it) and restore from a previously known good configuration (or known good back up.)

What is being reported almost sounds like a malware has damaged firmware (eg, BIOS malware mod).

PS: Try Safe Mode & see if anything changes.

AI Overview
To start Windows 11 in Safe Mode, go to Settings > System > Recovery, click Restart now under Advanced startup, and then select Troubleshoot > Advanced options > Startup Settings > Restart. After your PC restarts, choose an option from the list, such as pressing 4 or F4 for basic Safe Mode or 5 or F5 for Safe Mode with Networking.

 

[QueBert]

Ugh !

Unfortunately no advice other than to nuke the storage drive (ie, write zeroes to it) and restore from a previously known good configuration (or known good back up.)

What is being reported almost sounds like a malware has damaged firmware (eg, BIOS malware mod).

PS: Try Safe Mode & see if anything changes.

AI Overview
To start Windows 11 in Safe Mode, go to Settings > System > Recovery, click Restart now under Advanced startup, and then select Troubleshoot > Advanced options > Startup Settings > Restart. After your PC restarts, choose an option from the list, such as pressing 4 or F4 for basic Safe Mode or 5 or F5 for Safe Mode with Networking.

Thanks, I forgot to mention I tried safe mode with no luck. I didn't even think about spyware. I'll try Superantispyware and Malwarebytes. I'm not gonna nuke, it would take longer to get it back to my current setup than it will be to find the cause, this is fixable somehow.

 

[mikeymikec]

I'd take a look at the Windows Event Viewer (custom logs > administrative events) and see if anything worthy of note is in there.

I'd also do a full filesystem check of the boot drive (chkdsk C: /f /v /r)

Check the SMART stats for the boot drive.

Control Panel > Power Options > Choose what the power buttons do: Disable fast startup, then restart.

Do you have any third party security software installed?

If you boot into safe mode, does explorer still crash?

 

[QueBert]

I'd take a look at the Windows Event Viewer (custom logs > administrative events) and see if anything worthy of note is in there.

I'd also do a full filesystem check of the boot drive (chkdsk C: /f /v /r)

Check the SMART stats for the boot drive.

Control Panel > Power Options > Choose what the power buttons do: Disable fast startup, then restart.

Do you have any third party security software installed?

If you boot into safe mode, does explorer still crash?

good suggestion I can't believe I didn't think to check the log :| safe mode it still crashes, I did a chkdsk, I just ran crystaldiskinfo got a red icon for composite temp, it's 64c, not knowing what's the temp range for an m.2. I Googled and 64 is fine, so I'm not sure why it's red.

I have no security software installed outside of Windows Defender. I'll try the disabling fast startup now. I even did the windows thing where it checks the memory when it reboots, it took like 30 minutes and detected no errors. Not sure if that's just MS's version of Memtest.

And while this didn't fix it, I installed a 3rd party file explorer that you can set to replace Windows Explorer. I can browse my directories now, but it still crashes when I right click on the desktop, which I don't do much. But I'd still like to get this fixed properly, and am determined to figure it out. But, worse case senario this 3rd party one has more features and looks nice and lets me access my drives.

 

[mikeymikec]

It shouldn't be at that temp when idle; I'd expect to see 64C on an M.2 drive if I had just run some kind of benchmark on it. If you're unsure about how to read the SMART data then post a screenshot here.

Are you getting symptoms other than explorer crashing?

 

[QueBert]

It shouldn't be at that temp when idle; I'd expect to see 64C on an M.2 drive if I had just run some kind of benchmark on it. If you're unsure about how to read the SMART data then post a screenshot here.

Are you getting symptoms other than explorer crashing?

that's the only red icon the rest are blue. I'll check the heatsink, I did install a new GPU last night so maybe I accidentally bumped it loose. I was having this explorer issue before the HD. Some stuff I found on Google said it could be graphics drivers issue. My external M.2 is currently 29c so I'm guessing that's a good idle temp.

No other issues I've noticed.

I just checked the MB, the m.2 has a thermal pad but no heatsink. Not sure how the hell I managed that, but this means it hasn't had a heatsink since I put the new CPU cooler on about a year ago. I'll have to remove the CPU cooler to get to the m.2 slot, I'm not looking forward to that at all lol but I shouldn't half ass things. This can't be what's causing my issue though because there hasn't been a heatsink since 2024. I don't game or anything major so the 60 it's probably been at shouldn't be too bad.

 

[mikeymikec]

A thermal pad but no heatsink probably is the reason for the high temp, but I don't think it's the reason for the crash as that's way too specific, and why on earth would Windows start fine with an overheating M.2 drive and the only symptom is explorer crashing.

I just noticed that C1 suggested safe mode already, I'm not trying to steal other peoples' suggestions

What graphics driver are you using? What other drives do you have plugged in, try losing all of those. Do you have other software installed that integrates into Windows Explorer in any way, e.g. OneDrive/Dropbox, compression software, VLC, anything that adds explorer context menu options for example.

 

[QueBert]

A thermal pad but no heatsink probably is the reason for the high temp, but I don't think it's the reason for the crash as that's way too specific, and why on earth would Windows start fine with an overheating M.2 drive and the only symptom is explorer crashing.

I just noticed that C1 suggested safe mode already, I'm not trying to steal other peoples' suggestions

What graphics driver are you using? What other drives do you have plugged in, try losing all of those. Do you have other software installed that integrates into Windows Explorer in any way, e.g. OneDrive/Dropbox, compression software, VLC, anything that adds explorer context menu options for example.

Originally I was running the ARC drivers for the 13600k's IGPU. I uninstalled the drivers before I put the RTX 5070 card in and installed the Nvidia drivers 1st boot. Also, my game drive is an external, which is running at 29c, so for the 4-5 days until my heatsink is delivered. If I game the temps shouldn't shoot up. It's at 56c right now, which is blue according to Crystalmark. I don't run anything intensive from my OS drive

I do have a few things that added to the context menu, that's a great point you brought up. Nothing recent, but just because they never gave me problems doesn't mean they're not the reason now. I also figured out last night I can click around the control panel with no issues, but if I go to the status bar to try and type in what I'm looking for, it closes every time.

It's madness that a repair install of Windows didn't fix this. On XP, repair installs were my fix for so many issues I had lol.

 

[mikeymikec]

Originally I was running the ARC drivers for the 13600k's IGPU. I uninstalled the drivers before I put the RTX 5070 card in and installed the Nvidia drivers 1st boot. Also, my game drive is an external, which is running at 29c, so for the 4-5 days until my heatsink is delivered. If I game the temps shouldn't shoot up. It's at 56c right now, which is blue according to Crystalmark. I don't run anything intensive from my OS drive

I've got two M.2 SSDs in my system, one above the graphics card and one below. The one above is routinely warmer than the one below. The stats right now:

M.2 above graphics:
49C / 49C / 55C (three sensors reported on the M.2 drive)

M.2 below graphics:
34C / 34C / 32C

The one above should be completely idle since I'm running Linux all day today and the top drive has a Win11 install on it. The one below is the Linux drive. They both have heatsinks (the top one has an integrated heatsink, the bottom uses the motherboard's M.2 heatsink).

56C might well be expected from a M.2 drive above the graphics card and if your ambient is warmer than mine (18.1C according to a thermometer on my desk).

 

[In2Photos]

I recently updated to Windows 11 of several PCs, including my work laptop. I've noticed several issues with it, like stalled applications where the application just freezes for a period of time. I can't do anything to that application, but others work fine during this period. There is no excessive CPU, RAM, Disk usage either. And it happens to several apps, but most notably is Explorer. I read somewhere to try reindexing the files, which I did. It seems to have helped some. I know that is not your exact issue, but perhaps worth a shot if you have indexing enabled. In my case it took quite a while to reindex so I let it run overnight.

 

[mikeymikec]

@QueBert

You might want to look into this, it may apply to your situation:

Microsoft finally admits almost all major Windows 11 core features are broken

Microsoft has confirmed that Windows 11 Shell and every associated core feature and element are actually broken, and have been like this for many months.

www.neowin.net

 

[QueBert]

@QueBert

You might want to look into this, it may apply to your situation:

Microsoft finally admits almost all major Windows 11 core features are broken

Microsoft has confirmed that Windows 11 Shell and every associated core feature and element are actually broken, and have been like this for many months.

www.neowin.net

Wow, I did read on Reddit that the latest SP could lead to making Explorer crash. I uninstalled all the updates from that group and still had the problem. Good to know MS is admitting there are potential problems, and they're working on them. But the issues from this are the only reason I discovered Opus Directory. Which is world's better than Explorer. So in a way I'm glad MS screwed the pooch here. I know they said they're working on fixing the issues, but I won't hold my breath.

 

[mikeymikec]

Wow, I did read on Reddit that the latest SP could lead to making Explorer crash. I uninstalled all the updates from that group and still had the problem. Good to know MS is admitting there are potential problems, and they're working on them. But the issues from this are the only reason I discovered Opus Directory. Which is world's better than Explorer. So in a way I'm glad MS screwed the pooch here. I know they said they're working on fixing the issues, but I won't hold my breath.

Did you check out the scripts that were suggested on the page I mentioned to counteract the problem?

 

[QueBert]

Did you check out the scripts that were suggested on the page I mentioned to counteract the problem?

I tried what it says, didn't have luck getting the actual script part to work. It's a bit above my head, aI added the 4 Add-AppxPackage and created a .PS1 file with everything in the script part. But it doesn't run and says

Unexpected token 'off' in expression or statement.
At C:\users\biggi\documents\explorer.ps1:1 char:1
+ @ECHO off

I removed that line, and it ran some of the commands, but I got a bunch of errors. I wasn't trying to spend an hour Googling to learn why it wasn't working. Maybe 1 day soon when I have the time and feel patient I'll read up, I've never used Powershell before so this is all new to me. I'm sure I can learn it, these just look like more advanced config.sys files. But for now I'll stick with using Opus Directory until I'm ready to undertake trying to wrap my head around this script and what it's actually doing.