"Windows Explorer has stopped working"

[troggg]

After a series of operations preparing my PC for PT10 Native including changing around hard disks in mobo controllers, installing a new video card and a firewire card, okaying some Windows updates, and installing iLok and Avid drivers and software, I was rewarded with "Windows Explorer has stopped working" whenever I right click on a file or a drive. It's not a complete show stopper, but something tells me I better sort this our if I want anything approaching a smooth PT experience.

Anyone been down this road?

[tonemaker]

sounds like some corrupted system files. i would try doing a couple different varieties of repair installs (from Windows DVD-ROM) one at time. It might work after just one try. Just be sure to do a chkdsk c: /f (in the command prompt) and then reboot and let it do it's thing. That will try and repair some other errors. But the repair install will utilize older system files (off of the DVD-ROM), so you'lll have to do a whole lot of Windows updates perhaps all over again. But assuming the right update downloads work, Explorer might eventually work.

Of course it's also tricky because the audio driver and audio program and iLok installs probably have some dependence upon being installed onto a working version of Explorer. So you're kind of hosed on both sides of the coin. You will probably have to uninstall all the stuff you were trying to update after you get Explorer working, and then after you are sure Windows is working, consider installing the audio stuff AFTER say, running CCleaner to clear the leftover debris out of the registry (but that's mildly risky too).

But honestly, after all those kinds of serious changes and updates and installs you've been doing it could be very rough. iLok is tricky. ProTools seems to constantly be creating nightmares for many many users. Avid/M-Audio don't seem to have the best support and are known for some continual driver bugs even with products that people tend to like. And Windows is notorious for messing people up with updates that really aren't needed.

Sorry for you loss and for your pain.

[Bill@WelcomeHome]

First, you can remove the latest installed software until you find the culprit and the system works properly again.

Windows has a 'restore' point if you let it, return to the last good configuration and start from there re-installing what had failed.

If that doesn't get it, Windows has a 'repair' feature. Use that.

Worse comes to worse, you'll have to wipe your disk and start over. But that is extreme, and it looks as if something that you've installed has screwed the pooch.

The idea that Windows will mess you up with it's updates is a pretty old idea. I've been running Win7 since it was in beta, the 64 bit version and the 32 bit version since release. I've let it do all the auto updates that it wants to do, no problems.

I don't use PT, but I have both UAD (notoriously problematical) and iLok. I talk with other beta testers, developers, and other audio guys, and Win7 has been a big surprise for all of us. I didn't have problems with XP Pro either, but it was tweaked pretty good. Not much of that to do with Win7.

[troggg]

Astroidmist: Thanks for your reply. Already did checkdisk, no problems. Also ran all sorts of antivirus and malware stuff. Avid actually replied within 24 hours about another issue I was having - drive names too long. And after their response, I was able to fix that [my Audio drive had been a system drive before so it has a System Reserved partition that was over 11 characters long. I came up with the fix, but their hint was actually useful. So they're not completely out to lunch. I would definitely be on Studio One if I did my own final mixes, but I don't, and the great engineers that like me and will give me a great rate are on PT, so that's that. I was psychologically prepared for some rassling with PT, so I'm not freaking out or anything. I will persevere and get this thing rocking.

Bill: Thanks for helping. I have nothing against Windows Updates. I disagree with your statement that it's recommended updates are seldom wrong. I've had a few here and there I had to roll back. But it's probably better to have them than not to have them. Regarding System Restore, I'm familiar with it, have done it many times. However, as I surfed the web trying to investigate the Windows Explorer isn't working message, almost everyone who had the issue said that they'd tried that and it hadn't worked. The more I think about it, you're right, I should try it anyway, especially cause there's every chance the Ilok and Avid installs were on to a semi-corrupt system. I'll let you know how it goes! Unfortunately, I'm new to iLok and Pro Tools, and it's obviously a convoluted install. But we'll give it the old college try. If I have to reinstall Windows, that's life in the big city.

[Mike P]

Originally Posted by troggg

After a series of operations preparing my PC for PT10 Native including changing around hard disks in mobo controllers, installing a new video card and a firewire card, okaying some Windows updates, and installing iLok and Avid drivers and software, I was rewarded with "Windows Explorer has stopped working" whenever I right click on a file or a drive. It's not a complete show stopper, but something tells me I better sort this our if I want anything approaching a smooth PT experience.

Anyone been down this road?

I've had this issue. I'd close a project in Nuendo, open Windows Explorer, click on the project folder to copy to a backup drive, then receive this error message.

If I close Nuendo or open a completely different project, Explorer works properly. I'm guessing it's some sort of permissions thing but as long as I close Nuendo or load a different project while attempting to perform a manual backup, the issue doesn't occur.

[troggg]

Mike, Cubendo is somewhat forgiving. PT is a "finnicky bitch" as another forum bard put it, so I can't risk any system gremlins. Glad you can work around yours.
While this particular issue was pretty resistant to internet searching, if you want to fight the good fight, you'll want to get up close and personal with msconfig. In other words, you'll play around with enabling and disabling Startup items and Services till you find the culprit. If that doesn't do it, then you're on to the joys of Event Viewer. Or you can pick Option C that you're already on, also known as "live with it." If you're not compulsive and just wanna record some tunes, then just keep on keeping on.

Well . . . needless to say, System Restore worked perfectly. Duh! Problem gone. I'm back on track. Thanks for making me rethink that strategy, Bill!

OK, back into the fray. . .

[produceromega]

Originally Posted by troggg

After a series of operations preparing my PC for PT10 Native including changing around hard disks in mobo controllers, installing a new video card and a firewire card, okaying some Windows updates, and installing iLok and Avid drivers and software, I was rewarded with "Windows Explorer has stopped working" whenever I right click on a file or a drive. It's not a complete show stopper, but something tells me I better sort this our if I want anything approaching a smooth PT experience.

Anyone been down this road?

Oh I'm going down that road on cruise control lol... Pro Tools 10 will not get past startup screen (Windows 7 64bit)

I had windows files missing last month, so I had to inplace upgrade windows - which fixed that problem. Unfortunately now Pro Tools 10 doesn't even get past the startup loading screen..

[troggg]

It's definitely the wildest and weirdest install I've ever done -- and I go back farther than I want to admit.

Guess what?

PT10 is the culprit.

Installed the Pace iLok drivers first. No problems with Windows Explorer.

Installed PT10 -- "Windows Explorer has stopped working" is now back!

After I got a message that the long-winded installation was successful, the program immediately bombed out, saying "PT hardware is either not installed or used by another program." Poof! Clicked on the newly created desktop icon . . . the program actually launches! Haven't had a chance to check it out, I'm downloading the Virtual Instruments now. Talk about a crazy dialog box; they make it a double install, one for the instruments and the other for the sounds. But when you try to input the OS drive for the instruments and your Samples drive for the sounds . . . it gets confused and all hung up. Nice try, guys. Then there's the Download Manager, which claims to somehow improve your download world over what Windows provides . . . I'd say that's pretty debatable!

Anyway, I may as well just go ahead and complete the install and momentarily ignore the Windows Explorer issue, as I have to check out my interface and mic, too. But PT is the culprit on my PC.

[troggg]

May have identified an offender in msconfig. It would now appear I have surmounted two big hurdles and have a happy system with the ability to right click in Windows Explorer and PT apparently ready and willing to serve. The excitement of recording track one will have to wait while I'm imaging the system.

[Woodsae]

This issue is actually not a pro tools issue. It is actually mac drive. I had this issue for years using Mac drive with pro tools 7 and 8 but when it was just pro tools there was no issue, and now it's bundled with pro tools. It's just a glitch and does not cause any corruption that I have seen.

[troggg]

I originally suspected that little Macdrive utility that installs along with the PT program. It just seemed kind of foreign. But that's not one of the services I unchecked in msconfig, so you may be right that it doesn't cause any harm.

I've done all sorts of stuff including poking around PT a bit the last hour or so and I can not reproduce the Windows Explorer error.

[tonemaker]

Troggg, wow, what a ride. Glad you got some stuff to work.

Sounds intense. i'm glad you didnt have to do a repair-install. Peace.

[troggg]

Still prepping for the first track, pondering which Avid-recommended optimizations I want to try and which I'll wait on. So I'm not quite "back to work." But things are humming along, albeit there were some anomalies with PT dumping files all over my Documents without putting them in folders.

First impression: it's not as seductive visually as I imagined it might be. I thought things looked better in videos and screenshots, but I haven't tried to customize anything yet.

The best news is that PT seems to have accepted my honking video card -- which people might want to know about -- it's a Gigabyte Radeon 6770 Silent Cell with a humonguous passive cooling system, the fastest ATI x6000 that comes passive. When I say humonguous, I'm not exaggerating. You can't tell in the pictures. I have to do some moderate video editing. And it wasn't that outrageously expensive at $120 USD.

I think we can now put "PT needs an nVidia video card" myth to bed. But I don't want to get too cocky till I start recording and see how it fares then.

Back to reading up on the joys of hard disk indexing . . .

[troggg]

Wow. All systems go! First recording a success with Mackie Onyx Blackbird and ten-year old $5 SIIG PCI TI Firewire card [the same one PT and Mackie recommend today, NN440122 or something close to that]. PT automatically recognized the Onyx firewire.

Folks, it's doable, but it does take a certain amount of pre-planning and willingness to stand on your head to get past obstacles like I faced. But hey, sometimes you have to train PCs to be DAWs. They don't always go quietly.

My working system, which is not the absolute fastest out there, but it's plenty fast enough for PT Win Native which doesn't necessarily love the latest greatest and fastest, especially since my primary mission is recording me, not running a commercial studio:

Coolermaster Storm Scout Case Yeah, it's a gaming case, but I LOVE the handle and its military, let's-get-the-job-done nature. Changed the pretty quiet case fans to quieter and ramped down the BIOS to Silent because there's . . .

A honking overkill Coolermaster CPU cooler with two reasonably quiet fans I inherited from the previous owner, and . . .

The aforementioned passive Gigabyte 6770 video card. Your eyes will pop out of their head when you see how big its heat sink is. Better than more fans!

16 GB Corsair RAM 1600 running at 1333 [once again we're talking about finnicky PT which could balk at overclocks].

Coolermaster Silent Bronze 700 watt power supply. I inherited some of this gaming stuff, but, in this case, it all works for DAW cause it's quiet and high quality.

OS Drive = Seagate 500 GB
Audio Drive = Hitachi 1 TB
Samples Drive = Western Digital older 7200 160 GB I had around; with hard drive prices where they are, this'll do just fine for the moment.
Backup Drive = WD Green 2 TB.

Asus P8P67, didn't need Deluxe or anything, updated to latest BIOS

Intel i2500k, yeah I know in a flat-out sprint the i2600 is way faster, but in my case, since I don't record 16 tracks at a time or do final mixes, this is more than sufficient.

SIIG TI Firewire card, #NN440122 [or something like that, the one Avid recommends]. I'm not running the Windows legacy Firewire driver [an Avid recommendation] unless it turns out I need to.

Win7 Pro 64-bit.