A problem with Explorer reseting XP

[Reverend]

One thing i recommend you try before contemplating a reformat,is defrag your hard drive.

Also check that you have the latest bios for your motherboard.

I notice you are using onboard graphics,what amount of memory does it use?

[Dehcbad25]

Could you tell us your motherboard maker and model?.
When I said re-install I wasn't meaning to format first and make a clean install. I was meaning to reinstall over the old instalation, that way XP takes all your seetings back. This might fix the problem or not, but here is the good part. IF it fixes the problem Bravo!! and you know something was wrong with the XP instalation. If it didn't work, know for sure you can blame a program. Since you have problems in the explorer view, and not in my PC view, I would try a reinstall. After all it takes an hour, where you need only 10 minutes of assistance, so you can do other stuff. It is much better than doing a system restore (I think)

[maxinminn]

Originally posted by Dehcbad25
Could you tell us your motherboard maker and model?.
When I said re-install I wasn't meaning to format first and make a clean install. I was meaning to reinstall over the old instalation, that way XP takes all your seetings back. This might fix the problem or not, but here is the good part. IF it fixes the problem Bravo!! and you know something was wrong with the XP instalation. If it didn't work, know for sure you can blame a program. Since you have problems in the explorer view, and not in my PC view, I would try a reinstall. After all it takes an hour, where you need only 10 minutes of assistance, so you can do other stuff. It is much better than doing a system restore (I think)

I tend to agree with you on that type of reinstall. Since the system has been up and running for over 72 hours with no resets (avoiding use of explorer.exe) I think that's what I'll do, since it should be harmless. I did do an optimization last night also, so this would be a good time to try it. The mombo is an Amptron K7-800LMR using an AMD 751 chipset.

I'll try the reinstall and let you know what happens.

[Big Booger]

Before I'd reinstall over the current installation, you might want to try the system file checker command out. It might fix this issue...
click start,
all programs
accessories,
command prompt
type: sfc /scannow

Make sure your XP disk is nearby. It will find and fix any broken system files, using your windows XP disk.
BB

[maxinminn]

Originally posted by Big Booger
Before I'd reinstall over the current installation, you might want to try the system file checker command out. It might fix this issue...
click start,
all programs
accessories,
command prompt
type: sfc /scannow

Make sure your XP disk is nearby. It will find and fix any broken system files, using your windows XP disk.
BB

Thanks, but I did the reinstall before I saw this, however, I did the system checker over the weekend and it found no bad files.

The reinstall went smoothly, however, as soon as I tried explorer.exe for the first time, in about 3 min it did the silent restart. So.... it's back to the drawing board and using My Computer.

[Conan]

I would do a reformat. In fact I'm overdue for one, it's been 3 weeks already!

[Dehcbad25]

well, maxim, now you discarted a posibility. We know windows is fine, and that some program is affecting the explorer GUI.. Just to be safe that is the GUI and not some strage this affecting the starting, why don't you open My computer, and then click in view>Explorer Bar and select Folders. That will make it look as Explorer. Someone correct me if I am wrong, because I am running Windows 2000 right now.
If it doesn't crash when using that, you really have something wrong with your PC, and I would update antivirus soft, and run and scan again

[Big Booger]

Just to double check,
open up your administrator tools,
go to event viewer and see if there is any message related to explorer.exe

If there is could you please post that message. Just highlight the text, right click, copy and paste.

If you dont see anything related, I'd say try to reinstall, format full, with a NTFS file partition.

If you still get the same problem after a clean install, then you might have a corrupt or damaged XP disk, although this is highly unlikely.
BB

FURTHER:

Right click my computer,
click properties,
Advanced tab,
Error Reporting button,
enable error reporting,
make sure both boxes below the enable are checked.
Restart.
Run Explorer.exe
See if it refreshes, if so, it should, in theory, providing it generates an error, report that error to a log file. Once you have it
then take a look at the event viewer in the adminstrator tool set.
BB