Vista - problems with windows explorer when I right click .exe files

I have vista home basic. My computer is a compaq presario sr2170nx. The last couple days I have been getting the following message when I right click on icons on my desktop or click on quick launch icons: Windows explorer has stopped working. It gives me the option to restart or search online for a solution. either one causes the icons in the system tray to go away and then reappear. this doesn't happen when i right click on folders on the desktop but any icons for applications it will. Also any icons in those folders will do the same thing. I have virus scanned with nothing found. I am currently scanning with adaware although i don't think it will find anything either. I have downloaded a few programs recently to convert portions of a dvd to mpeg for a class I'm taking but nothing else out of the ordinary. Any ideas?

Hi House, and welcome to Vista Forums.

This may be caused by a recently added misbehaving Context Menu item from a installed program.

See if this can help you:
Right-click is slow or weird behavior caused by context menu handlers

and

ShellExView - Shell Extension Manager For Windows

Hope this helps,
Shawn

Ill try those later gotta head to work now...also here is the details from the error if anyone can make sense of it.

Problem signature:
Problem Event Name: APPCRASH
Application Name: Explorer.EXE
Application Version: 6.0.6001.18000
Application Timestamp: 47918e5d
Fault Module Name: StackHash_2e7a
Fault Module Version: 6.0.6001.18000
Fault Module Timestamp: 4791a7a6
Exception Code: c0000374
Exception Offset: 000b015d
OS Version: 6.0.6001.2.1.0.768.2
Locale ID: 1033
Additional Information 1: 2e7a
Additional Information 2: 3a71ec754587b7b3db7918043ad6f3e1
Additional Information 3: b81e
Additional Information 4: 57dfeed18b26de58bc0de3135b8750f7

I tried the shell extension but I'm not really sure what I'm looking at. All the extensions show they are not disabled.

Also to add insult to injury when I right click on applications through the start menu/all programs I also get the message

Since Method Two in that link (Right-click is slow or weird behavior caused by context menu handlers) did not help, then you might try a System Restore using a restore point dated before the problem.

System Restore - How to

yeah i ran a cleaner program also and it didn't work so ill do a system restore

wow i tried system restore and i still have the problem.

ok sorry to keep updating....i tried a system restore further back and it worked. apparently there was something prior to me downloading those programs that cause this to happen. I haven't had to right click an icon or launch through quick launch in a while now so it may be it just surfaced now that i used it. Not sure if it was a windows update that messed it up or what there was a java update too. anyway for now it works. thanks for the assistance.

right guys, this has worked for me,

I loaded the ShellExView that was talked about earlier in the post and looked for the most recent process installed and disabled it

CmdLineContextMenu Class

Don't know that it is or what is does! but now my right click works NO crashes,

Regards

sherlock

CmdLineContextMenuClass is a component of SecuROM by Sony, a notorious copy protection product that probably got installed in your computer with a game. In mine, it was with Neverwinter Nights 2, and it caused the same crashes.

Thanks guys for the replies, it helped me deactivate it. Now I can delete my shortcuts again .

I also had the same issue with right click on any .exe or shortcuts to .exe. and it crashed/restarted my explorer. Thanks for the info above on using ShellExView and I was able to disable the CmdLineContextMenu. The right click crashing has been fixed. The CmdLineContextMenu described as "SecuROM contect menu for Explorer". It was surely indicated from Sony DADC Austria AG. I remember the only Sony software which I installed recently on my computer was an updated Sony digital camcorder software from their web.

You don't have to install Sony Software. Check the link in my above post: it is a sony drm rootkit used by many games, of various distributors and studios (not necessarily Sony).