Beginning to get annoyed with Windows 7...

[CHJ]

Does anyone know why Windows explorer keeps malfunctioning, freezing my PC. It's also happening on my laptop now,. It is seriously messing with my head!
Any advice on what to do, would be appreciated.
I've seen online remedies, but they are so involved, I would re-install Windows more easily. (If I had a disc with which to do that!)
TIA

You say you have the "Same" problem on both your PC and Laptop.
Sounds like you have loaded some add-on's to your browser that are not compatible with current operating system files or you may not have the latest updates for your systems.

Do you get the same problems using a plain copy of Chrome or Firefox? If so then the disk problems others have referred to or memory problems may be involved although that happening on both machines at the same time would be a very rare event if it was down to mechanical failure, rogue software is another matter of course.

You also say you do not have a system disk, presume that reference applies to both machines, if machines were supplied without a system disk did you not have a recovery partition on them and make a backup disk or usb stick copy.

Must say Win7 on a clean updated system has been solid for commercial use in my experience.

As is win 8.1, just the little niggle of apps not running in windows without additional software as far as I'm concerned, soon to be covered in win10 which seems to give the best of both worlds of Apps and Windows from the short time I've played with it.

 

[DiscoStu]

I have more than 2000 machines running XP - no problem. Win 7 is also good. Vista is dire. 8 isn't great 8.1 is better, really needs a touch screen or start menu to make it work well IMHO.

I'd suggest you have malware on your machines. Try CCCleaner, Adaware or Malwarebytes. Or better still all three. I believe all are free for home use.

 

[mseries]

The Windows explorer glitch turns my screen opaque, when I try to move files about the between discs, or from the desktop to folders. and a window comes up giving me three options.
Close program and seek a solution on-line.
Close the program
Wait for program to respond.
The last option can take up to half an hour.
I just defragged, but there doesn't seem to be any difference with speed. I de mounted all external USB hardware. No difference.

so you are copying/moving files and it stops responding. Close all browsers and any other application you have open. Then, can you try to disconnect from all networks, then disable known background processes such as AVs and do the copy again ?

 

[Benchwayze]

mseries:

Unfortunately not. The only way out, short of a crash-switch off is to use the 'three fingered salute', and run the task manager. Even then there is a delay because the 'end task' option in the task manager doesn't work for the program that's frozen. I usually have to switch off, and then restart.

I was thinking of using XP, on a machine not connected to the internet, so I can work hassle-free. Then use the laptop for online usage.

 

[mseries]

no I mean once you've recovered from the freeze in order to try to eliminate the AV from the equation.

 

[wizard]

we had both computers die very slowly a few weeks ago mine on windows 7 and her indoors on windows 8, they just got slower and slower then ground to a stop. Mine went first so I just went out and bought a new one and her indoors took hers back to factory settings. Both work ok now; I am sure we had both caught something. I was reluctant to change to windows 8 but I think it's great, the best ever.

 

[dzj]

Back up your data, re-install OS. Use Windows Explorer only to install Total Commander and 'tout va bien' as Del Boy would say.

 

[nicguthrie]

If malware is not to blame, I'd bet you anything it's AVG at fault. I've seen it do the same on other PCs, hence my question about using free anti virus.

You're likely using it on both machines too...

Try uninstalling AVG and putting a trial of Kaspersky on.

The sad thing is that if you've had to ctrl-alt-delete out of Explorer a lot, it's possible there's damage to system files by now, and even fixing the root cause may leave you having to reinstall.

AVG was once a very good bit of software, but it's degraded terribly as they've tried to put more and more features on to a pretty limited backbone.

All the best.

Nic.

 

[Scottdimelow]

I'd also suggest Linux, I've been using Ubuntu for about 5 years and would not go back. It takes a bit of getting used to, but it's well worth the effort. Need any software you can guarantee it'll bu in the ubuntu software centre. It's a shame most pcs come with windows, it's bloody awful. I just replaced windows 8 with ubuntu on my girlfriends laptop, it was so memory heavy!

 

[woodfarmer]

I'd also suggest Linux, I've been using Ubuntu for about 5 years and would not go back. It takes a bit of getting used to, but it's well worth the effort. Need any software you can guarantee it'll bu in the ubuntu software centre. It's a shame most pcs come with windows, it's bloody awful. I just replaced windows 8 with ubuntu on my girlfriends laptop, it was so memory heavy!

Ubuntu with mate front end is lovely

 

[Robbo3]

Hi Benchwaze.

Windows Task Manager should give you some idea of where the problems lie. On the Prosesses tab, clicking on the column header names will sort them by context eg CPU or Memory will give you the % usage. Click again to reverse the table.

One possible cause of slow running is having two resident Anti Virus programmes. By resident I mean always on & running in the background. Additional on demand scanners are generally not a problem.

The 3 main free AV programmes are Avast, AVG Free & Avira with Comodo AV or Comodo Internet Security also sometimes recommended & Microsoft Security Essentials for those that know what to & what not to allow. Despite all the ranking tables it mainly comes down to the amount of resources they use & the feel of the programme.
Avast - https://www.avast.com/index
AVG Free - http://free.avg.com/us-en/homepage
Avira - http://www.avira.com/en/index
MSE - http://windows.microsoft.com/en-US/wind ... s-download
Comodo - https://www.comodo.com/products/free-products.php?

Edit to add:
User recommended Bitdefender Free - http://www.bitdefender.com/solutions/free.html
No doubt there are others which I have forgotten.
HTH

 

[DrPhill]

Hi Benchwaze.

The 3 main free AV programmes are Avast, AVG Free & Avira with Comodo AV or Comodo Internet Security also sometimes recommended & Microsoft Security Essentials for those that know what to & what not to allow. Despite all the ranking tables it mainly comes down to the amount of resources they use & the feel of the programme.
Avast - https://www.avast.com/index
AVG Free - http://free.avg.com/us-en/homepage
Avira - http://www.avira.com/en/index
MSE - http://windows.microsoft.com/en-US/wind ... s-download
Comodo - https://www.comodo.com/products/free-products.php?

HTH

I used to use ClamWin
http://www.clamwin.com/

 

[Benchwayze]

I'd like to thank everyone for their interest and advice.
I haven't solved the problem completely, but after getting shot of AVG and Ubuntu, the situation has improved greatly. My browser is still sluggish (A full minute, after clicking the short-cut, before the browser opens. Especially after first booting up.
Task Manager doesn't tell me much, because I am not sure of which processes I can dispose of, safely.
My Installation is on a partition, and I have my suspicions that the partition isn't big enough for the Windows installation to do its stuff. Maybe I should install programs to the non-partitioned section, or remove the division altogether. I suppose re installation would be necessary.
Thanks again folks. I am now attending to various PMs.

Regards
John

 

[ajmacleod]

I'd be 90% sure that AVG wasn't your problem, but that your problem combined with any AV program would make the machine slow.

Being very short of disk space in your system drive is definitely a possible cause (and getting rid of AVG would help free up a bit of space temporarily, plus AVG will have been scanning most files every time you opened them and hence the extra delay) - if the drive is very full then all your files will be exploded into hundreds of little pieces all over the drive, wherever there's a little bit of space and so reading them will be excruciatingly slow.

You can have the second partition removed and expand the first one without reinstalling everything but I'd strongly recommend getting someone who knows what they're doing to do that; if the system partition is very badly fragmented and you have all the discs, licence keys etc for your software you may be better just wiping the whole drive and starting again.

But I'd still make sure and check the health of the drive before doing anything else, otherwise you're wasting your time and risking your data.

 

[Robbo3]

IIRC W7 requires about 17GB initially but after a few weeks use even 20GB can be too small ('cos Windows does a lot of double counting). I found 30GB to be a nice size if My Documents are moved to the second partition as well as being careful to install as much as possible there (I've only ever come across 3 programmes that refused to install on a different partition to the OS) .

FYI - EaseUS Partition Master Free will resize partitions without data loss but as always back up your documents, photos, Itunes, or whatever first.
- http://www.partition-tool.com/personal.htm

Also, there is nothing that anyone has said in this thread that I disagree with. Diagnosing problems from a distance can be quite difficult - the repairs being relatively easy.