What Causes Windows Explorer to Crash?
Although its common for users to blame Microsoft for all crashes or faults of the Operating System, Windows Explorer crashes typically occur from conflicts created by program installers of third-party software creating “useful” additions to the “Properties” menu of Windows Explorer. These functionalities are added through the “Shell Scripts” used by the third-party applications to add short-cut menu items to files to let users run the program directly from the file menu. Errors in these shell scripts don’t necessarily result in direct Windows Explorer crashes, however, as they can also show the following symptoms: 1 – Windows informing the user that it must restart Explorer, 2 – File Folders that “Hang” or result in significant delays with no warning, 3 – Windows Explorer crashes when choosing a contextual menu, or 4 – Contextual menus taking a significant amount of time to open.
