My overall Windows 10 experience has been phenomenal besides one issue I couldnt figure out for the life of me until recently. About once every three days Explorer.exe would crash when opening up File Explorer or the Windows Start Menu, Cortana as well for that matter since she, it, is part of the Start Menu as well. The Start Menu, File Explorer, Cortana would refuse to open until windows automatically restarted Explorer.exe. File Explorer would also not open instantly at times. Instead taking a few seconds to open. Dealt with this since July 29th.
Two Weeks ago I thought to myself, “What could be causing this?”. Then realized after clicking on a file that Avast had added a Context Menu entry and that it may be possible it is either corrupt or conflicting with explorer. Since Avast decided to be mean and not offer a way to disable the three context menu entries, I fired up CCleaner and used it to disable said entries.
I haven’t had a Explorer.exe crash since and File Explorer opens without delay every time. Cortana as well.
I would have tried a repair of Avast instead of disabling one of it’s tools. Program and features > select Avast > Select Repair when done, reboot your system.
I’m running the latest preview build of Windows 10 and Avast without any problems.
The context menu entry performs as expected without any explorer delays.
Whilst I don’t use windows 10 - how long is the folder/file name that cause this or is it any folder/file ?
As you can see this isn’t happening to Bob3160 - his is a relatively short file name - and why I asked about the length.
I have never experienced this issue up to and including win7 and there have been many who wish to have the folder/file name removed from the context menu. But none have ever reported this crashing explorer.
This old workaround may be preferable to completely disabling the right click scan potential (not entirely sure if it is still applicable).
Context (right click) Menu, very long file names how to change the display so as not to show the file names:
Using notepad, run as administrator, open the C:\ProgramData\Avast Software\Avast\avast5.ini (Vista, Win7, win8 and later file location)
Now find and edit the [UserInterface] section, add the new line after the label, ShellExtensionFileName=0 and save the file the avast self-defence will ask for confirmation. [UserInterface] ShellExtensionFileName=0
To Remove Shell Integration - use the ShellExtensionFileName=-1, to turn off the avast shell integration completely. (Note the value - minus 1)
