Windows 7 Windows 7 Explorer stops working

[charlesh]

Most of the time when I right click on a folder either in C: or F: which is a Seagate aux drive, Explorer stops working (drop down window message "Windows Explorer stopped working" and next message "W Explorer restarts"). I have to start Explorer again from the Taskbar. It means that I do not get a context window with "Delete", "Rename" or even "Properties" etc on it's menu.
Now, a large search on Internet, did not give any help. This is a particular case of W Exlorer stopped working, and despite there are lots of infos on right click of context menus even with W Explorer, they don't address this special case. I investigated the registry as well, the best I found references to some utilities, but those all say that I should delete certain registry items one by one and see what helps. I believe this approach is most dangerous and I don't like to mess with the registry.
I used cleaners and registry scanners (Microsoft and others) Didn't help.
I went to Search>eventvwr>log>application tab and found many "faultings" of the same origin, obviously one for each occasion when Exlorer stopped working, one of them:
Faulting application name Explorer.exe version 6.1.7601.1767
Time stamp 0x4d67ee4
Faulting module name SHELL32.dll, version 6.1.7601.18103 stamp 0x512d9f39
Exception code 0xc0000005
Fault offset 0x00000000000050544
Faulting application start time: 0x01cea37dfeb6f9d8
Faulting application path: C:\Windows\Explorer.exe
Faulting module path: CL\Windows\system32\SHELL32.dll
Report ID: 6d7d25d7-0f72-11e3-848b-f0bf9710cf0c

Event ID 1000 Task category (100)
Level: error, keyword classic User N/A

By the way, I am running 64 bit, the above Shell reference is 32.
Windows 7 Pro, Sony VAIO VPCL216FX/B Intel Core i7 2.00 Ghz, RAM: 6.00 GB, 64 bit
ST31000528AS disc drive on C:\ amd Seagate Goflex 500 GB on F:\
(2) monitors, USB 3.0

 

[Saltgrass]

The 0xc0000005 is an Access Denied type error. You might start by removing the external drive to see if it makes a difference.

When you right click explorer on the task bar, some recent items might show. Can you select and remove those one at a time to see if it helps?

You can right click the explorer on the task bar and right click explorer again to get the Run as Admin option. Maybe it would allow access to something the normal user needs.

It is hard to say what might be causing the situation, but possibly a corrupted file, or trying to access something it is not able to.

If all else fails, try running a system file check by opening an Administrative Command Prompt and typing sfc /scannow and let it finish. It should not take more than a few minutes and will tell you the outcome of the scan.