I am many hours into trying to isolate a problem with explorer.exe (or one of its subprograms). I am running Windows 8.1 (6.3.9600.17031) on an Acer laptop that it has operated properly for many months. The problem that surfaced last week is this:
After what appears to be a normal startup (desktop and taskbar look fine), no application can be started from the desktop. Any icon will highlight on a first click, but the application isn't started. Likewise, the Start button and taskbar icons do not work. Task Manager shows explorer.exe as Not Responding. And repeated tests show 'Not Responding' even before clicking on anything.
Yet, if I call up TaskMgr and use the Run menu entry, I can launch any of my applications and they work fine. Everything points to explorer.exe getting stuck. I've attached screen captures.
Things I have done just to make sure I'm on a solid foundation:
chkdsk /f
Dism /Online /Cleanup-Image /RestoreHealth
sfc /scannow
mbam.exe /fullscan
No problems are reported.
I realize the bailout choices are Refresh or Reset. But I feel the TaskMgr tools are pointing out the problem and I just can't recognize what it is. In particular, explorer seems to be waiting on itself. Plus, the multiple copies of ThumbnailExtractionHost don't seem right.
Any help will be greatly appreciated.
After what appears to be a normal startup (desktop and taskbar look fine), no application can be started from the desktop. Any icon will highlight on a first click, but the application isn't started. Likewise, the Start button and taskbar icons do not work. Task Manager shows explorer.exe as Not Responding. And repeated tests show 'Not Responding' even before clicking on anything.
Yet, if I call up TaskMgr and use the Run menu entry, I can launch any of my applications and they work fine. Everything points to explorer.exe getting stuck. I've attached screen captures.
Things I have done just to make sure I'm on a solid foundation:
chkdsk /f
Dism /Online /Cleanup-Image /RestoreHealth
sfc /scannow
mbam.exe /fullscan
No problems are reported.
I realize the bailout choices are Refresh or Reset. But I feel the TaskMgr tools are pointing out the problem and I just can't recognize what it is. In particular, explorer seems to be waiting on itself. Plus, the multiple copies of ThumbnailExtractionHost don't seem right.
Any help will be greatly appreciated.
My Computer
System One
-
- OS
- Windows 8.1
- Computer type
- Laptop
- System Manufacturer/Model
- Acer Aspire 4530
- CPU
- AMD
- Motherboard
- Nvidia
- Browser
- Pale Moon