Windows Explorer has Stopped Working loop

[UltimaOX]

So i was on my computer today and it randomly blue screened. It did a memory dump and then restarted. Upon restarting during the startup process, i got "windows explorer has stopped working". When i click restart or close, this continues to loop indefinitely.

I have searched online for a few hours and tried various fixes but to no avail. I continue to get the problem.

I am running Windows 7 Ultimate 64bit.

Methods ive tried are as follows:

Uninstall any recent programs or files. (i had installed 1 game a few hours before the blue screen and uninstalling it did nothing)

Virus Scan (full system scan found nothing)

Run computer in Safe Mode/clean boot mode. (both still have the issue of explorer crashing)

Repair Windows with OS CD. (the repair option said there was nothing to repair)

Run cmd and do "sfc /scannow" (This acctully found an issue but gave this reply "windows resource protection found corrupt files but was unable to fix some of them")

I ran "eventvwr" and looked at the event logs and the crashing windows shows as this:

"Faulting application name: explorer.exe, version: 6.1.7600.16385, time stamp: 0x4a5bc9bb
Faulting module name: msi.dll, version: 5.0.7600.16385, time stamp: 0x4a5bdfdd
Exception code: 0xc0000005
Fault offset: 0x00000000000029c4
Faulting process id: 0x104c
Faulting application start time: 0x01cf6428576287a4
Faulting application path: C:\Windows\explorer.exe
Faulting module path: C:\Windows\system32\msi.dll
Report Id: 9539671b-d01b-11e3-b108-20cf304f5221"

I am out of options. Ive looked all over and found nothign that fixes this or even tells me whats causing it. I really do not want to have to format my OS drive so im here looking for help.

 

[corroded]

Do you have the Install Media? you can extract the msi.dll and replace the register it from the DVD

a how to: http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/42776-extract-files-windows-7-installation-dvd.html

It is a bit involved. You could also copy it from another win7 machine and skip to the end.

 

[UltimaOX]

Do you have the Install Media? you can extract the msi.dll and replace the register it from the DVD

a how to: http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/42776-extract-files-windows-7-installation-dvd.html

It is a bit involved. You could also copy it from another win7 machine and skip to the end.

I have the Windows CD yes, but i can not do that tutorial as explorer isnt working so i cant use the file browser or do much of anything.

 

[UltimaOX]

Anyone else have ideas?

 

[Guy Gordon]

TL;DNR Look in the Event Viewer.

Old thread, I know. But the problem just hit a client. Monday morning and Windows Explorer is restarting every 10 seconds as soon as he logged on. Really hard to work through, but safe mode was too limited.

After 3 frustrating hours following false leads I finally found the problem.
In this case it was a bad dll linked to by explorer.exe: filemon32.dll, part of PowerDesk. He's not even using the software, just had it installed long ago. The file didn't change -- Windows did, and made itself incompatible with the old dll. Turns out filemon32.dll causes problems for many people.

The way I found this was to (finally) look in the Event Viewer at the Explorer.exe crashes. It reported the Fault occured in filemon32.dll. I then used Sysinternals autoruns to find the registry key that was loading it, and disabled that.

Many thanks again to Mark Russinovich for the Sysinternals Suite.