"Windows Explorer is not responding." Really?
July 2, 2010 7:40 AM   Subscribe

Switching between Excel and Word on a laptop running Vista is problematic because a long-deleted browser is not responding. The hell?

I am using a laptop running Vista (aargh) and I find that when I have both Excel and Word open (filling in a spreadsheet and taking notes) roughly one time in ten I cannot switch between these programs -- the machine freezes up and I get a message that "Windows Explorer is not responding." I use Firefox and in fact uninstalled Explorer years ago, after dealing with this problem for a couple of months. If I choose to wait for it to respond, it goes into a loop for longer than I have ever cared to wait for it. I eventually just click the box to close the error message, and after anywhere from ten to ninety seconds it does and I can begin work again.

This only seems to happen when the laptop is running on battery power and only with these two programs; as well, it seems to happen only when the internal modem is turned off. I suppose I can turn the wireless modem on, but it is a battery hog. Any suggestions?
posted by ricochet biscuit to Computers & Internet (8 answers total)
 
Windows explorer != IE. Maybe it's stuck rendering icons? Maybe this fixes it?
posted by scruss at 7:47 AM on July 2, 2010


Response by poster: I tried that and it seemed to make it worse (in that now it randomly freezes and gives me the option to wait, restart or close the program) instead of it happening only when I switch between windows.
posted by ricochet biscuit at 8:02 AM on July 2, 2010


Windows explorer is not Internet explorer.

The former is not a web browser. The latter is.

Without knowing more about your compuetr's hardware, it's hard to say what the issue is. Perhaps you need more RAM.
posted by dfriedman at 8:08 AM on July 2, 2010


Er... well, for starters, it sounds like you're saying you uninstalled Internet Explorer (that's the browser; as scruss says, Windows Explorer is completely different, it's the actual Windows environment) which is odd because that's supposed to be impossible on Windows Vista.

And since Windows Explorer is actually the Windows environment itself, well, I can't think of any way to uninstall that, either. Not without removing Windows Vista completely.

I'll check around and see what I can find; haven't heard of this specific problem, although of course I've seen that error message, as it's a common one.
posted by koeselitz at 8:11 AM on July 2, 2010


(But you can see why "Windows Explorer is not responding" is a much more significant error message than "Internet Explorer is not responding," right? It's telling you that the actual Vista environment is hanging. The prime cause of that, as dfriedman suggests, is memory issues, although of course it's the kind of thing that can be complicated enough that I don't think we can straight-up say that's what it is.)
posted by koeselitz at 8:12 AM on July 2, 2010


Oh – I also remember this: I know this can be caused by hard-drive memory shortages, since Vista seems to use the hard drive for some memory and rendering stuff. So I guess the big questions you could answer to help us help you are:

  • Click on the start button, right-click on "Computer" or "My Computer," and select "Properties." This will give you a screen telling you how fast your computer is (probably measured in gigahertz, gHz) and how much RAM it has (probably measured in GB). Can you tell us those numbers?

  • Once you're done there, click on the start button and left-click on "Computer" or "My Computer." This will obviously just show you the different drives on your computer – but can you tell us how much space is left on the hard drive(s)?

  • It would also help if you could tell us what kind of computer it is – make, model, how old it is, etc.

  • posted by koeselitz at 8:22 AM on July 2, 2010


    If it only happens when the wireless network adapter is turned off, chances are that Windows Explorer is having trouble with some network location that it finds inaccessible. Perhaps a file in the recently used list of Word or Excel was on a network location.

    The other possibility is that you happen to be switching right when Word or Excel is saving its autosave backup copy of the open document, and the computer is thrashing the hard disk at that moment. So Windows Explorer sends the "switch windows" command but the app doesn't respond right away and Windows Explorer gets upset. Or if the hard drive is beginning to fail.
    posted by gjc at 7:05 PM on July 2, 2010


    Response by poster: It`s a Toshiba A200-TRS, roughly three years old, with a 1.73GHz processor and 2.5 GB of RAM. 78 gigs (of 137) free on the C Drive, 9.92 of 9.99 free on the D.
    posted by ricochet biscuit at 5:08 AM on July 3, 2010


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