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    right click crash

    Using windows XP if I right-click on the 4.20 (or 4.00) plugins.exe the windows explorer crashes which leads to a Dr. Watson program crash and the computer freezes. Then have to ctrl-alt-del and shut down and restart the computer. The same thing happens with the flash.dll file in the plugins folder. There may be other files in that folder that cause the same problem but I am certainly not going to try them all. I tried about 7 others and they worked ok. Also tried about 50 other various files and the right-click feature works fine.

    #2
    Were any of the other files EXEs? Do you have a lot of items in your context menu (particularly when clicking on an EXE)?

    I suggest that because I have bollixed context menus on my mind. I worked on cleaning mine this morning. It was getting so that I could go get a cup of coffee while waiting for the first right click of the day to produce something. I used Sysinternals' Autostart and a couple of Nir Sofer's shell extension management tools to tweak it down. Every program that one installs wants to add a context menu handler and a load of other poo, and sometimes the mixture can be explosive.
    Its: Belongs to "It"
    It's: Shortened form of "It is"
    ---------------------
    Lose: Fail to keep
    Loose: Not tight

    ---------------------
    Plurals do not require apostrophes

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      #3
      If a DLL file appears in the context menu to be called something is seriously going wrong.
      Thanks for the tip, matera, I knew Autostart already which is great, but I will check this shell extension options.
      I was also confronted with elements in the context menu which were no longer relevant, so should be wiped.
      0.6180339887
      Rest In Peace, Sam!

      Comment


        #4
        The plain Registry Editor is quite good at this too. Just search for ContextMenuHandlers. Then there are also the PropertySheetHandlers, which put additional pages in "Right Click" -> "Properties" dialog. In these keys there are either ThoroughDescription\{ProgId} entries, or just {ProgId}, which are more difficult to identify.

        Anyway just do a search for that progid and see what comes up. The registry gives great flexibility to assign shell extensions only to specific file types. By default they may be installed for all extensions (HKCR\*\shellex). Instead of completely removing an extension, you may choose to assign it only to archives, or MPEG audio files.

        I've encountered a couple misbehaving Microsoft shell extensions. One was very nasty, dealing with cryptography, certificates or something like that. Whenever I called up properties it copied the whole file to %temp% and analyzed. Took me long to figure this one out.

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          #5
          The Registry is a dangerous place for that sort of thing unless one is very experienced. Even I like to start with the little free tools that know where to look
          Its: Belongs to "It"
          It's: Shortened form of "It is"
          ---------------------
          Lose: Fail to keep
          Loose: Not tight

          ---------------------
          Plurals do not require apostrophes

          Comment


            #6
            Hmm. Thanks for the info. I can handle that, but still I really hate the dreadfull registry concept.
            0.6180339887
            Rest In Peace, Sam!

            Comment


              #7
              Answers

              Yes some of the other files I checked were exe's. When I right click a file the context menu comes up in less than a second. Since I only seem to have the problem I described above when right clicking on several IV files, I don't think it's a problem with my computer. Has anyone else been brave enough to check if they have the same problem?

              Comment


                #8
                Originally posted by whizer View Post
                Has anyone else been brave enough to check if they have the same problem?
                I just tried to rightclick every plugin individually and all at once. But if we are talking about unstable operation of Explorer, what has IrfanView to do with it?

                The only explanation is that a broken, misbehaving shell extension has been installed. It's being tipped of by either UPX compression or something else (analysis on your system is required to narrow down the possible cause). If your computer crashes just by interacting with files in a file manager, it most definitely has a problem. Get it cleaned up.

                When I right click a file the context menu comes up in less than a second.
                In a normal operation there should be no perceived delay.

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                  #9
                  By the way :
                  Using windows XP if I right-click on the 4.20 (or 4.00) plugins.exe the windows explorer crashes
                  What 'plugins.exe' ? There's no such thing in the IV-directories. So it can only refer to the installation of the plugins-package.
                  I may be wrong, but I think this is a self-extracting zipped file, not an executable in the strict sense, like a DLL.
                  0.6180339887
                  Rest In Peace, Sam!

                  Comment


                    #10
                    How come you guys don't have winXP SP3 installed, maybe the problem only occurs with SP3. How would you suggest that I "clean up" my system, go through the Windows Explorer program line by line? Also, take a look at this; irfanview_plugins_420_setup.exe. At least thanks for checking your plug-ins folder files with the right-click.

                    Comment


                      #11
                      Originally posted by whizer View Post
                      How come you guys don't have winXP SP3 installed, maybe the problem only occurs with SP3.
                      I will speak only for myself. There is nothing in SP3 that I'm currently missing. Unless there is a very good reason why I should switch to a different program or version, I won't do that. Not the other way around. There is always the possibility that the new version will behave differently or even have new bugs I don't (yet) know how to live with.

                      How would you suggest that I "clean up" my system
                      Perhaps invite a person who knows computers better and can use the tools Matera indicated. If the computer freezes, it might even not be possible to take a screenshot. Not to mention it will take ages to post in a forum and get replies.

                      Comment


                        #12
                        Thanks for your reply j7n. I just have no confidence that a diagnostic program could find the reason that there is a problem in only 2 files out of the probably 1000 files that I have right-clicked since I upgraded to SP3. I've already spent almost 8 hours on this problem and it's just not worth it to spend more. I got rid of the plugins-setup.exe program the only way possible, by left-click and drag to the recycle bin. IV 4.20 is installed and seems to be working well for my purposes. One remotely possible cause for my right-click problem with the flash.dll file is that I have the flash program disabled in my spywareblaster program. I would try checking that but I just don't want another possible windows crash. I had a weird windows problem in one of my restarts troubleshooting this problem but I wiggled out of that one and the computer restarted correctly the next try.

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