Multiple instances of Windows Explorer

concord72 said:

Opened up task manager and saw that in the Processes tab, there were 41 instances of Windows Explorer running. I open WE frequently but only one or two at the same time and didn't have any open at that time. And it's not just a temporary thing, I have been checking sporadically for weeks and there always seems to be 30+ instances running.
I have also noticed over the past few weeks that my files in WE are not being sorted properly. I have them set to Sort By Date and it will sort some files properly and others incorrectly, not sure if this is related.
Any ideas?

Hi.
You might want to start by running ADWCleaner to see if you have anything lurking on the system.
If it finds anything, please post the logs found in C:\AdwCleaner\
I would then open an admin command prompt and run sfc /scannow.

Yes, okay, I think these are nothing serious to worry about; they wouldn't be the reason for multiple explorer.exe files running. Not sure why they weren't deleted either though - that's strange.

***** [ Chromium URLs ] *****

Deleted Ask
Not Deleted AOL
Not Deleted Huffington Post
Deleted SNF All Access
Deleted Softonic EN
Deleted Softonic EN
Deleted Softonic EN
Deleted Softonic EN

Perhaps you could try an offline Defender scan.
Windows Defender Offline Scan in Windows 10

Please let us know the results of the system file checker. If it's anything other than "no integrity violations found", we'll want to run some DISM commands. Here's the tut:
Use DISM to Repair Windows 10 Image
.
I'm off for the night. Will check back tomorrow.

concord72 said:

Windows Defender scan found 0 threats and there were no integrity violations.

Odd. You should only have one instance of explorer.exe running in Task Manager.
Right click a few of them and select Properties; see if they look like this:










Also, run winver from the search bar and post a shot of that window please.

My bad, I need to clarify some things:
- It shows up as WINDOWS EXPLORER for me, not explorer.exe (not sure if this matters or not)
- The multiple instances are under Windows Processes in Task Manager

Properties looks the same as the pics you posted.
Winver is attached.

The "Launch folders window in separate process" box IS checked.