When i kill and restart explorer.exe, what processes and files does it execute?

March 18, 2009 10:33 PM

When i kill and restart explorer.exe, what processes and files does it execute?

It doesn't seem to re-execute the files in my startup folder, so when i restart it, what things DOES it restart? Where does it get reference these services, processes, programs? How can i add to the list of what it starts when i kill the process?

posted by lockle to computers & internet (10 comments total)

Why do you think it restarts anything other than explorer.exe? I've never seen any reason to think it does.
posted by kindall at 10:50 PM on March 18

it seems to refresh icons, the desktop, and other small facets of the user interface that don't seem to be directly controlled by explorer, which is a window manager.
posted by lockle at 10:52 PM on March 18

Yes, it's a window manager, but not like something you might find in Linux. Explorer.exe runs the Windows Shell which is basically what you see. Explorer is more, or less, the GUI, so it makes sense that things jump a little when you relaunch it.
posted by niles at 10:55 PM on March 18

When explorer.exe is started, it will load any shell extensions that you have. The most common shell extensions are those found in the Windows Explorer right-click menus. For example, Winamp commands or the WinZip menu.

You can use a program like ShellExView to view and disable shell extensions.
posted by jedicus at 11:10 PM on March 18

One thing you don't mention is what version of windows you're running which really makes your question differ.

Basically though, when you kill explorer.exe and restart it that's all you're doing.
So the taskbar, icons, start menu, and file browser are all part of explorer.exe and that's what is refreshed.
One thing that not too many people know about is that the registry is refreshed when explorer.exe task is killed and then restarted.

New versions of explorer are finally separate from internet explorer which is notable.

You might want to look into Shell Replacement.
posted by zephyr_words at 11:37 PM on March 18

I wonder how you go about installing a shell extension, such as if it can be done by writing to a file.
posted by lockle at 11:47 PM on March 18

I wonder how you go about installing a shell extension

It's a combination of installing a file somewhere which implements the necessary methods, and writing some strings to the registry to register the extension. So it involves registry editing (either programatically or manually) and installing a file or files.
posted by helios at 5:54 AM on March 19

actually, I should have just pointed you to MSDN which explains everything.
posted by helios at 5:55 AM on March 19

Instead of guessing, just go get Filemon and find out exactly what files are being accessed.
posted by MrHappyGoLucky at 2:48 PM on March 19

Or even better, process monitor which can show you all the files, registry entries etc a process finds. Be careful with this, it can really slow your system down. It also has nifty features like "process activity summary" and "process tree" - process tree shows you all the processes that ran at any point during the capture window, process activity summary shows you just specific processes in a different view.
posted by Admira at 6:39 PM on March 19