Windows Explorer has Stopped Working

Picture this. You have a major assignment and a report to finish as a part of your office project. Suddenly out of the blue your windows explorer stops working. To your utter disgust the computer screen has hung up. Absolutely exasperated you look for different solutions or ask your friends or siblings who know about this. Instead of going the trial error method, presenting you with the possible solutions if your windows explorer has stopped working.

Solving the Problem of Windows Explorer

Solution - #1
Scanning the files and folders on the hard drive even if they are all valid is what you can consider doing. Scanning will detect if there are any bad sectors on the hard drive or any other related problems which might be proving a hindrance to the explorer working correctly. After you go into C drive, select properties from the context menu for checking the drive. Then go to tools tab and then select the 'check now' button. When you select check now, you would find 2 options, make sure you click on both of them. Finally, press the start button.

Solution - #2
Another thing you can try doing is to turn off user account control. What you need to do in this case is to go to the control panel first. There you would need to go to make changes to your user account and then go to turn user account control on or off. Select that option and turn that option off. In a few cases you might be asked for the administrator password.

Solution - #3
If your system is not updated, even that can create a problem in your windows functioning. Go to start menu, all programs and look for windows updates and software updates in case that particular software is running on your computer at that time. Drivers for hardware too have to be checked if your windows explorer has stopped working. This can also be creating problems in windows vista.

Solution - #4
Windows explorer problem can also be encountered on account of a third party program or service. To sort this out, disabling the third party services and programs needs to be done, with the help of system configuration tool. Go to start menu and type msconfig in the run option and switch to startup tab first and then get rid of all the entries there. Take care that you keep the software security installed if you want by keeping it checked. When you are done with this, switch to the services tab and select hide all Microsoft services, seen at the bottom. This will help third party services to be displayed. Disable those services and restart the computer after that is done. this windows explorer problem, could also create problems with Internet explorer 8.

Solution - #5
There is a chance that missing or corrupt files are creating a problem. This problem can be clarified in the following manner.

• Click start and then type 'cmd' in the search option in the start menu.
• In the results, you would find cmd.exe. Click 'Run' as administrator.
• Here, you would be asked for the password for an administrator account.
• If you are administrator click continue or provide the administrator password. Click continue after that.
• When the command prompt comes, type sfc/ scannow and then press enter.

You are done! This computer security issue could be the culprit in this case.

Solution - #6
Here is the last thing you might try to do. Go to start menu and go to network. Follow that up by clicking on organize - you would find it on the upper right corner of the window. Here, you would see a drop down box. There you will find a folder option below with 3 tabs at the upper right hand corner. Click on view there and select 'always show icons, never thumbnail'. There! You are hopefully good to go now.

If all these do not give you the solution, you would have to consult a pro. He/ she will definitely give you a solution which is good enough. These are just a few generic suggestions and may differ depending on your operating system - it could be a Windows vista or Windows 7.

Eventually not even an expert can say how to deal with the scenario without seeing what the problem is. Hence, do try these things out, but be prepared that none of these might not work in extreme cases! All the best!