Windows Explorer needs to be restarted periodically

I am running Windows 10 Pro x64 on a desktop PC.

I never used to have to do this. Sometime after last major windows update, certain windows features like File Explorer, and Media Player would sometimes become very slow to respond. Media player would sometimes give me an error, and refuse to work. I don't know if it is limited to only these applications, it is just obvious with those two. Rebooting always fixed this.

I did a little web searching of my symptoms and found a suggestion to re-start Windows Explorer when this happens. That fixes the issue, and is easier than rebooting.

Even though I know how to fix the problem, I have no idea why it is occurring in the first place. I have tried SFC /scannow and DISM (restore health), and those made no difference. None of my hardware seems to be failing either, so I am confused. Has anyone else experienced this, or know the cause?

I use a program called Open Hardware Monitor to keep track of things like processor activity, temps and memory usage. I haven't been running low on RAM.

I'll give it a whirl. I'll post again sometime tomorrow with a situation update.

yu gnomi said:

I'll give it a whirl. I'll post again sometime tomorrow with a situation update.

I have encountered same issue except with audio control becoming inop (can’t adjust). Occurred 2~3 times over a 2 month period.

Restarting Explorer easy fix. My problem may be a 8+ year old system.

My system is around 7 years old, but as long as the hardware isn't failing, then the problem is probably a matter of finding what software needs to go. I have a likely candidate...

I downloaded ShellExView from Nirsoft and ran it. I hid all microsoft entries and disabled the rest.

So far, the problem has not resurfaced, but it was intermittent and frequently took days off from bothering me. If a shell extension is to blame, than I would guess that CDisplayEX is the guilty software, as it is old software and probably not commonly used. I have been using it recently as a PDF reader, but I can live without it.

I will check out Sumatra.

Thank you for your help. I am going to mark this as solved and uninstall CDisplayEx. If the problem returns, I will come back to this thread and post again.