Kenneth wrote:
>explorer has stopped responding, and needs to restart. >>


There are many possible reasons. Usually, on the error message, there's 
note that says "details". If you click on that, it may give you a lead as 
to which program is causing the error. Often it will name a .dll file, 
which with luck might might have a name associated with one of your open 
applications. If so, close that application down and eliminate it from your 
startups.

Many applications, mainly background utilities, contain .dll files which 
hook onto Explorer. If one of these gets corrupted, it can cause problems.

Another possibility is that you have been infected by malware or a 
virus---these also may hook into explorer and cause conflicts. Some can be 
very difficult to remove, because they keep shutting down Explorer so that 
you can't take any effective action. In that case, more drastic remedies 
are needed.

First run anti-spyware/malware/virus scans to see if anything comes up.

If the system reports clean, then run Msconfig (Start/Run/type msconfig and 
go to the Start tab)--or whatever startup manager you may have--and disable 
all startups. Msconfig won't allow you to disable anything vital, so it's 
quite safe to take everything out (it's easy to restore anything 
later--just re-tick the boxes).

Reboot, and see if that eliminates the problem. If it does, then you know 
the error is being caused by one of your startup applications.  Most new 
computers have far too many of these set to run at startup, thus increasing 
the chances of the sort of error you are now experiencing.  You can 
progressively run Msconfig again and add back the startups one at a time to 
ascertain which is the culprit.

I assume you have no earlier restore points available, as that's often the 
simplest solution.

Vista has the ability to make a backup image of your C-drive----if you've 
done that, then you could restore from that good image. If you haven't done 
it, you should do so once the system is running properly again. It's 
excellent insurance against any future problems.

Don Penlington


 From the Beach at Surfers Paradise in sunny Queensland.
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http://users.tpg.com.au/deepend/index1.html

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