Explorer.exe keeps freezing for one user

AncientPC

Golden Member
Jan 15, 2001
1,369
0
0
One user account always has explorer.exe randomly freeze on it (start button only brings up Windows Catalog/Update).

When explorer.exe freezes up it never restarts itself. I can't access Task Manager to manually kill / restart the process, I have to either log out and log back in or switch to admin account to kill the explorer.exe for that user. I have run virus and spyware scans (local and web based) with no results.

I thought it might be some of the processes that only that user runs upon login so I mirror user account's processes with the administrator's by killing off any processes that don't match. This doesn't help either.

Between times when explorer.exe is working and crashes, I am literally doing nothing on that account (outside of matching processes).

Virus / hdd? Explorer.exe works fine for other accounts.
Memory? Rebooting or restarting explorer.exe should allocate the memory in different locations.
Spyware? Ad-aware, Spybot S&D, and TrendMicro scans reveal nothing.

2/3 user accounts work perfectly fine, unfortunately the one that doesn't work is my main account. I can't seem to find where this problem is coming from. I could delete / recreate the user but that would be like buying a new car everytime you can't figure out why the old one's not working.
 

kitkat22

Golden Member
Feb 10, 2005
1,464
1,332
136
Did you run the scans in "safe mode?"
Try running "memtest"
Run diagnostic stuff on your hard drive to see if there are bad sectors.

Let us know what you find.
 

Cdubneeddeal

Diamond Member
Oct 22, 2003
7,473
3
81
I had a similar problem before when running Limewire. When I would open the folder that contained dowloads for limewire Explorer would go haywire. I ended up getting a registry fixer (Registry Mechanic) and it seemed to fix it.