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    Vista Windows explorer CPU usage

    Discussion in 'Windows OS and Software' started by MatzeXXX, Nov 2, 2008.

  1. MatzeXXX

    MatzeXXX Notebook Consultant

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    Hello!

    For a few weeks now I experience something very annoying when clicking my way to the Roaming folder in the Vista user folder structure. (I sometimes have to do that.) The Windows explorer gets kinda stuck, needs forever to open the folder, and the CPU usage of explorer.exe goes to 99%.

    I think it might try to preview something it has trouble reading. How could I find out what's causing the problem?

    The only way out right now is to kill explorer.exe in the task manager.

    Thanks!

    Matthias

    My system: XPS M1330 3GB T8300 8400GS 200GB Vista Home Premium.
     
    MatzeXXX, Nov 2, 2008
    #1
  2. Budding

    Budding Notebook Virtuoso

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    You probably have a video file in that folder that is using a codec which is incompatible with Vista. When you attempt to access that folder, Explorer tries to go into Preview mode by opening that video file, resulting in a CPU spike. Since the codec is incompatible, Explorer would eventually crash.
    The fix would be to either move that file somewhere else using the command line, or change the properties of that folder so that preview is not loaded everytime it is accessed.
     
    Budding, Nov 2, 2008
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  3. S_P_Q_R

    S_P_Q_R Notebook Evangelist

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    Go to Control Panel -> Administrative Tools -> Event Viewer -> Custom
    Views -> Administrative Events. Look for errors around the time of the
    freeze to see if you can glean anything there.
     
    S_P_Q_R, Nov 2, 2008
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  4. MatzeXXX

    MatzeXXX Notebook Consultant

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    Hi!

    Thanks a lot for those hints. I suspected a video codec too, because in the past this kind of Windows explorer freeze happened connected to Xvid video files, but it seems to be the "microsoft" folder in "roaming" what's causing the freeze. There are absolutely no videos in the folder.

    The event viewer did not help too much, but maybe I am just not finding the right info.

    Matthias
     
    MatzeXXX, Nov 2, 2008
    #4
  5. Harper2.0

    Harper2.0 Back from the dead?

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    I had this problem in XP. Don't remember the fix though.
     
    Harper2.0, Nov 2, 2008
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  6. sgogeta4

    sgogeta4 Notebook Nobel Laureate

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    I have this exact same problem!! The fix in XP is different as you can modify a key in the registry (I believe it was to prevent caching of incomplete video files). Vista doesn't have the same key though. It's odd since I didn't have this problem last week, not sure why it's acting up like this. I have disabled thumbnails from folder options and this seems to work for now (albeit at an inconvenience of not being able to see any thumbnails).
     
    sgogeta4, Nov 13, 2008
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  7. DetlevCM

    DetlevCM Notebook Nobel Laureate

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    Well, I've got problems with Flash video Files on Vista - this appeared out of nowhere too...
     
    DetlevCM, Nov 13, 2008
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