3
For some time now, I have been living with and working around an annoying problem in Windows XP whereby any time I open a file dialog (Open/Save) in any program, not long afterwards, that program will hang (the GUI will completely freeze and “ghosts”).
I have done extensive tests and can confirm 100% that it is file dialogs that are the problem. directory-selection dialogs do not cause the problem.
The obvious explanation is that some shell-extension is misbehaving, but I am having difficulty determining which one.
I tried using ShellExView and Autoruns to disable shell-extensions, but that did not help, especially since there are 333 items in ShellExView and 154 items in Autoruns, so disabling and rebooting for each one would be a nightmare (particularly because even though the problem is consistent, it is not immediately reproducible; I have to just kind of wait for it hang some—random?—time after).
Does anybody know of a way to find out what shell-extensions would specifically affect file dialogs?
(No, there are no network-mapped drives.)
have you tried AutoRuns? http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/bb963902.aspx Explorer tab...
– Logman – 2012-07-22T02:00:24.253Yes, with the same results. – Synetech – 2012-07-22T02:04:43.670
Have you tried running Process Monitor to watch a known-offender? Is the hanging permanent, or does it time out and return to normal after x seconds or minutes? – None – 2012-07-22T02:07:00.940
They stay hung forever. Process Monitor only works on SP2+ (and is also very sluggish and cluttered as well). I’ll try FileMon/RegMon (since I can’t remember if I already tired them). The problem is that the hang happens after a while, so it is difficult to figure out a good set of filters. – Synetech – 2012-07-22T02:08:43.387
I tried FileMon and saw several references to shell-extensions (and repeated references to a mysterious, nonexistent
journal.exe
). I don’t believe thatjournal.exe
has anything to do with, though I am trying to figure out where that comes from and eliminate it. Rather, I am going to try disabling the shell-extensions that were listed because there are much fewer (5) than the full list that ShellExView and Autoruns give. – Synetech – 2012-07-22T03:25:09.500