Windows Explorer freezes

After starting my PC (Windows XP) the first time I open Windows Explorer (not Internet) and right click on a file, explorer will lock-up. It nevers comes back. The computer is still working, I can open other applications. When I go to the Windows Task Manager it will say Explorer has stopped responding. I can kill the process there and restart Explorer everything will work normally. My main goal is to right click on a file and choose to edit it.

I recently upgraded from McAfee to Avast 4.8 Home Edition (free) and that is when this problem started. I never experienced this with McAfee or AVG.

Is there a setting to ignore something that will help fix this?

Welcome stevepatd

You need to totaly remove AVG and McAfee as it will prevent avast! from working:
http://www.avg.com/ca-en/download-tools <== AVG Remover(32bit)
http://service.mcafee.com/FAQDocument.aspx?id=TS100507