Windows 10 hangs when clicking on "This PC" in Windows Explorer

Hannele2 · 17 Aug 2016

aka "Working on it" bug.

Starting a separate thread about what I believe to be a bug or serious compatibility issue.
Lots of people on the net are having it, but there is no solution as yet. Screenshot below.

Step to reproduce: On a PC with multiple drives attached, open Windows Explorer and click on This PC (formerly "My computer").
Symptom: Instead of displaying the attached drives in the right hand pane as normal, Windows 10 is showing a progress bar, plus the message "Working on it". This goes on indefinitely.
(Several people mentioned also having issues with the icons in connection with this. I also have that, as you can see from the screenshot. May or may not be related to having installed and uninstalled Stardock Iconpackager.)

Initially the problem also prevented the individual drives from displaying their content. Disabling Defender, SearchIndexer, SearchUI etc solved that problem. But it's still present when clicking on My Computer to display installed drives. For people who want these services running, the workaround is probably not acceptable - particularly security conscious people who feel exposed when not running Defender.

I want to figure out what causes this problem - why do some people get it?
Is it linked to some setting or installed software, then what software or setting is it? Why do some people get this behaviour?
Various people mention online having been in touch with Microsoft who told them to restore or re-install. If I wanted to do that, I would just do it - not waste time on threads online.

I have killed a bunch of processes and disabled a lot of unnecessary services, but haven't found a solution yet.
Creating this thread as much for others with the same problem, as myself.

dalchina · 17 Aug 2016

Hi, can I ask about this question looking at this a slightly different way..
First, have you applied the anniversary upgrade?
(If not sure, Windows key + R, type winver; the build level should be 14393 if you have).
Second, do you ever reach a point where you can view drive contents, and if so, can you see the content of all your (multiple) external drives?

I ask this as some users are experiencing problems with external drives with the AU applied - MS is said to be 'working on it'. If you see the content reported as RAW, then you are experiencing this.
e.g.
After the anniversary update I can't access my external hard drives anymore! : windows

You can also check in Disk Management.

The recommendation is to roll back to the previous build (and block/defer the upgrade).

Thirdly, do you have search indexing configured to include external drives?

Fourthly, can you advise if explorer opens normally with no external drives connected?