Vista - Windows Explorer stopped working..restarting.. continuous loop

Two days ago, my computer had an error message 'Windows Explorer has stopped working' which is quickly followed by 'Windows Explorer is restarting'.. this is a continuous loop (unless you kill the explorer.exe process under task manager).

So I kept searching on Google and this one thread kept coming up: http://social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/itprovistaie/thread/90cc6950-c212-4e3d-ae50-83e6003b8dd6/
it's the second to last post by va-jay-jay and it suggests to uncheck the option for 'show thumbnails instead of icons' so I tried that.
then through task manager, Run->explorer.exe
and WOW i couldn't believe it was such a simple problem causing me such frustration. Very stupid. I checked the 'show thumbnails' option and explorer immediately began the loop cycle again.. so I have it currently unchecked.. but I actually like having thumbnail previews for folders and files on my desktop.
for example, picture files on my desktop, I'm just left with a generic icon and have no idea what picture each file is unless I open it.. any suggestions or help?

Try updating any software you may have installed because it came with your camera - RAW thumbnail viewers in particular.

When thumbnail viewing is enabled, Explorer has to "ask" the registered thumbnail generator for that file type (RAW, NEF, JPG. BMP ... whatever) to do the actual work of creating the thumbnail images when necessary. If the thumbnail generator is buggy or the data it's working with is somehow corrupted (the images themselves are corrupted), that generator may crash and in doing so take out Explorer itself.

Thanks for your help... I tried updating all the software on my system, even all the drivers.. and when I choose to "show thumbnails as icons" it still causes my explorer.exe to do the 'continuous loop'.
What do you think I should do?

If you run WERCON, then go to the "problem history" section (link is on the left hand side), the Explorer crashes should be recorded in that list. If you paste those numbers here someone might be able to tell you which DLL is causing the crash.