Server Solver

Right-Click Gone Wrong

Windows Explorer behaves badly when bringing up context menus or doing other right-clicking tasks.

• By Zubair Alexander
• 10/10/2005

I’ve also noticed some other weird behaviors. I can right-click and open a single file but when I right-click multiple files and try to open them at once, nothing happens. Short of reinstalling Windows XP, what else can I do to solve this problem?
— Name withheld

The symptoms that you’ve described are usually caused by a bad Context Menu handler. Basically, a Context Menu handler is a handler that adds shell extensions to the Context Menu. For example, the handler is responsible for the context-menu commands that you see when you right-click a folder. Various programs can add their own context-sensitive commands, in addition to the default cut, copy, delete, rename, etc. that already exist. Symantec anti-virus adds “Scan for Viruses…” option and lots of utilities add options for users’ convenience.

Unfortunately, not all software developers follow the strict guidelines for writing the code. Freeware and shareware authors are not the only ones to be blamed for buggy software; major software vendors can also be guilty of writing poorly coded Context Menu handlers. So how many Context Menu handlers do you have running on your Windows XP computer and how do you find out which one is the culprit?

Before I tell you the method I use to solve the above problem, I should point out that a bad Context Menu handler can also cause some other problems. A friend tells me she experienced a problem where she would right-click a folder and select Properties, but it didn’t do anything. Or she would right-click a folder and it would take unusually long before she finally sees the Context Menu. I’ve experienced a situation where right-clicking any desktop icon would cause the hourglass to show for a while, and then my taskbar would disappear. My screen would go black for about 20-25 seconds and then reappear when Explorer restarts itself after the crash. This particular situation is known to be caused by an incompatible Context Menu handler from DivX. (DivX is an advanced digital media format that lets you play, create, and share digital videos. The DivX codecs can compress video to a small size without losing any noticeable quality.) To ensure that you are using a version of DivX that’s compatible with Windows XP SP2, you can download the latest version of DivX by clicking here. DivX 6.0, DivX Pro 6.0, and DivX Converter have been available since June 14. You might want to read the section on disabling Data Execution Prevention (DEP) in Windows XP SP2 to understand the consequences.

You might be wondering, what if my Explorer crashes are not related to DivX? How do I find out which particular Context Menu is responsible for the crashes? The easiest way to figure that out is to use a Shell Extensions Manager called ShellExView. This utility allows you to solve Context Menu problems in Windows Explorer. Once you’ve installed the tool, sort the Context Menu by Type so you can view all the Context Menu items together as in figure 1.

Figure 1. Open up ShellExView and sort the Context Menu items that are running by Type. (Click image to view larger version.)

As you can see from the screen shot, some of the extensions have a pink background, such as Acrobat Elements Context Menu. These are all non-Microsoft extensions as you can tell by looking at the Product Name column. To figure out which Context Menu item could be the cause of Explorer crashes, what you should do is highlight one extension at a time and then disable it by either right-clicking, or use F7, to see if it fixes the problem. If it doesn’t, re-enable the extension and move on to the next extension. You do not need to reboot your computer to see the effect. Go through all the non-Microsoft extensions first and then try disabling Microsoft extensions one-by-one.

The last time I encountered this problem on a client’s computer it took about 30 seconds to solve the problem using ShellExView. The first non-Microsoft extension that I disabled was Spy Sweeper’s extension on the user’s computer and it turned out to be the culprit. I discovered the same problem on two other computers and they too were running the exact same version of Spy Sweeper and experiencing similar crashes in Explorer. Disabling Spy Sweeper’s extension also solved their problems.

Let's Hear It—How often have you experienced the type of Explorer crashes listed in this article? Do you have any other solutions that have worked for you? Please send me an e-mail at [email protected]. The best solutions will appear in a future column and one submitter will be sent a book, Protect Your Windows Network From Perimeter to Data, by Johansson and Riley (Addison-Wesley).