Opening images in Win 7 not working anymore - " COM surrogate has stopped working " error

Question

I have Windows 7 Ultimate 64 bit, with all updates installed. Suddenly, from some moment on today I can no longer open images with Windows Photo Viewer. I get " COM surrogate has stopped working " error if I try to open an image file. But I can see the preview of the image in the Explorer, as well as thumbnail. I can also open images with Paint. After the problem has started I have been sending some images through Skype. There I can double-click the icon and image opens fine in Windows Photo Viewer. I can also "scroll" and other images that are in same directory are being shown.

As a side note, I have just noticed that if I right click the Computer icon and choose properties, I get " Windows Explorer has stopped working " error. Windows Explorer then restarts itself. I don't get this problem for right clicking and opening properties for other files or folders. I suppose it is correlated to the image problem.

How can I solve this issue and continue using Windows Photo Viewer normally ?

EDIT :

There seems to have been another question regarding this issue here. But for that particular case, updating drivers worked. I have Nvidia 9500 GT, and Nvidia GeForce Experience program tells my drivers are up to date - even after clicking the "Check for updates" button.

Answer 1

Your drivers might be corrupt. I would download the latest drivers and reinstall. Uninstall current drivers first.

Here is a link to current drivers for the 9500 GT series and Windows 7 64 bit.

335.23 - WHQL

337.50 - BETA

If that doesn't work you can try to see if any system files are corrupt. Hit the start button then type in CMD. Right click and select Run as Administrator in the command prompt type in SFC /SCANNOW If your windows is pirated this command will break the crack. Also if you have made any system changes like changed notepad to something different it will revert it back.