Windows Explorer keeps restarting in a cycle while the system experiences crashes.
Windows Explorer keeps restarting in a cycle while the system experiences crashes.
Hi everyone, Today I've been attempting to solve a problem on a computer of someone I know. The (windows 10) PC boots up, but then when the desktop is supposed to appear, the screen remains white, and the task bar is flickering. It is possible to open task manager through ctrl-alt-delete, and from there it is also possible to run programs and configuration utilities through "new task". However, the flickering of the task bar also applies to basically every window including task manager, so doing anything (especially typing in commands) is very hard since the window basically keeps popping to inactive. From what I can tell it's as if explorer is just constantly restarting. Also, when trying to run web browsers, installers or other programs that might aid the situation, it almost always goes BSOD. The theories I have on what's happening here: - the windows installation, or at least windows explorer is just bricked. There are some weird other issues that point to this, for example some links in control panel don't work and instead present an error saying "class not registered". - there is a GPU driver issue, it appears the issue may be display related, and BSODs are classic driver error symptoms - the antivirus is causing the problem. The PC is running McAfee which should say enough. Some additional info: - safe mode, in any form, does not do anything. Still exactly the same problems. - all other options from the "windows repair reboot menu" also don't work. - updating graphics driver is not possible, the AMD installer won't run properly. It either results in BSOD or returns an error that "system detection failed". - uninstalling the antivirus is practically impossible. The uninstaller won't run when clicked on in control panel. Perhaps some special program could be used for this, but good chance I won't be able to install it. The owner doesn't recall any abnormal use, installation of software etc. prior to this behaviour, which started yesterday. If this were my PC it would have been a clean install hours ago haha. But I'd like to resolve this without a clean install if I can. Does anyone have suggestions for what could be going on here, or how to deal with it? Anything is greatly appreciated of course
Review BlueScreenView details for these crashes. Check Event Viewer too. Open Windows Explorer, go to the Start menu, restart your PC. Many issues resolve this way. It seems like a fresh Windows setup might be needed. Hardware failure is possible, but starting with a clean install could help. You mentioned an Intel 13/14 series—could be worth looking into specs.
Event Viewer I haven't checked. The screen itself says "critical process died". This is also my go-to fix with windows explorer. It has no effect here. It appears explorer is constantly crashing and restarting in some endless loop. Visually it looks like an invisible force is clicking "restart process" on explorer every second, so it makes sense that me clicking it an extra time doesn't do much. Agreed. This is an absolute mess. I sort of want to avoid a clean install, because I don't feel like dealing with reinstalling all of their stuff and saving all the files etc. I'm pretty sure a clean install would fix things, but I see it as my last option for now. I am hoping I might still be able to salvage this. I should also point out, for some extra context, I have noticed one of those "PC otimizer" tools being installed on this thing. This isn't causing the problem I think, since I made sure to disable it in task manager and as far as I can see in the process list, it doesn't run anymore, but this (and mcAfee) does give you an idea of the sort of user we're talking about. In other words, it doesn't surprise me at all that this installation is messed up. That's fine obviously, not everyone is savvy with PCs, I just want to point this out to make sure we're all on the same page about the level of disaster-PC we're talking about here. I ran chkdsk, not memtest. Maybe the latter does something, I'll give it a shot. The specs are OLD haha. I am not near this PC at the moment but I recall it has an amd A10 6700 with iGPU and 8 gigs of DDR3. I haven't paid too much attention to the hardware of this machine to be honest. It could be hardware related, but I doubt it given the symptoms. It also is a prebuilt machine, no wacky upgrades, overclocks or anything like that. I am of course open to any suggestions about hardware potentially being the problem, maybe I'm missing something, it just seems a bit unlikely.
BlueScreenView is a tool that analyzes the DMP file from a BSOD. This suggests it might be related to a Windows 7 upgrade. It seems the user suspects a full OS reinstall is needed. They recommend trying a startup repair and using DISM and SFC to potentially fix the issue. An offline DISM repair could also be considered.
These are my initial steps. Curious about how you got here—do you do this for work or as a hobby? Are you assisting a friend?