PLEASE HELP! "Windows explorer has encountered a problem.."

[Flying Spaghetti Monster]

"and needs to close"

I'm using XP. When this happens, I wind up just rebooting. I have to manually reboot, because no windows features will work.

Please help!

 

[Zulu Romeo]

What exactly happens? From my experience, when Explorer does that, the whole desktop (icons, taskbar) disappears. In XP, what I can do is attempt to restart Explorer by using right-click and Run... (I think - it's been a while since I used XP) and typing in EXPLORER.EXE. After that, the desktop should return, albeit with a few system tray applications no longer running.

Of course, to prevent this from happening, is there a particular service or background app that looks like it's not running as it should?

 

[Flying Spaghetti Monster]

Thanks for answering. I appreciate it! Here's the thing, it usually happens after my computer has been running for a while. I'm not exactly sure what causes it. After a time the message simply appears. When it does happen, I may still be able to use a browser but all windows functions, such as my taskbar become unusable. I cleaned out my registry recently so I don't know what is causing it.

 

[Zulu Romeo]

I think sometimes the Explorer background service does that when too many system resources are being used at a given time. It seems to be a problem harking back to the old Windows 9x days, where the same thing also occurs a lot, although with XP's NT architecture the Run... trick helps restore the desktop without needing to manually reboot the system, although your subsequent system stability and security may vary. (Sometimes, Explorer restarts by itself when the system resources are overloaded, but only on a good day.) It's not really a specific problem, although a particular system-hungry process can exacerbate the problem. (I have no idea what I'm talking about, but it's how I see the way XP runs. I'm sure someone more computer-savvy will have a better explanation. )

 

[Flying Spaghetti Monster]

no, I appreciate the feedback. Your comment about suing a lot of resources matches the times when I've gotten the message