windows explorer being a pain

okay guys, i've been trying to get this to work for some time and haven't had much luck so i decided i should ask for some help.

my windows explorer refuses to open after a while. i usually reboot my computer once a week or so but lately i've had to do it more often. after a day or so, windows explorer won't open new windows. the start menu works fine and in task manager it seems to be working, but opening it from the start menu, or from the quick bar doesn't do anything. sometimes it loads a spinning wheel for a second and then goes away. important note, opening folders from the desktop does work... not sure what that means. but after opening the folder and even keeping it open, i still can't open new windows. rebooting the computer always fixes the problem, but only temporarily and it is getting very annoying. has anyone else run into this or has a solution?

thanks in advance!

bump

It seems to be only explorer. Like I said, it won't open when accessing from the task bar or the start menu, however it will open if I open a folder that I placed on my desktop. From there, I can navigate to view other directories and it works properly. It doesn't seem to be an exact amount of time after a restart, usually a few days after. I will test it in Safe Mode, as I haven't yet tried that however when I was in Safe Mode recently, they opened soon after restart and hours after as well. Thanks for the response!

Seems to be working so far... I'll leave it unsolved for another couple days to ensure but I think this has done it!
Thanks!

I cleared the thumbnail cache but as of today, it isn't working again. Accessing it from the start menu or the taskbar doesn't do anything but it still opens folders from the desktop and I can navigate both to quick access and to My PC from there. Also, when I double click on a folder now, it seems to open it in that window, and open two new windows with that same folder. I have no idea what is going on, but it seems to be getting worse.

I tried it but it kept acting up. I ended up reinstalling Windows 10 and it seems to be working well now.

On to another issue that hopefully you can advise on as I'm moving into my dorm soon and want a secure computer. My computer doesn't want to sleep on its own. The monitors turn off after a few minutes but it never sleeps by itself. I have turned it on in power settings after 10 minutes and I even found a setting in the developer section of the new control panel saying it would override sleep and never let it but I turned that off. Any ideas?