Also Norton Antivirus' "Office Plugin" is notorious for keeping WinWord running in the background

Explorer is not my friend. Something +snaps+ and I'm unable to view directories that contain video files and/or graphic files of the PNG or TGA persuasion. The common element seems to be alpha channels, I guess.

All the files are generic DV and graphic files. Nothing fancy. It usually happens mid-way through big important projects. But eventually, the time will come when I attempt to open a folder that contains project files and windows will give the 'An error has occured' notice while explorer dies. I've learned to not use the explorer in vegas because of this problem. I've never been able to fix it but at least there's a really simple work-around.

Vegas (and pretty much everything else) will work without explorer. I'm using cmd.exe and progman.exe to run this box right now.
MacOS X doesn't like me either. Thank you for letting me share. - Franco

I installed software 602 and dumped all windows works and word aplications computer runs great and I have no problems. Software 602 is free opensource photo album and word processing works exactly like winword.

Problems with Explorer locking up are not due to a bug in Windows. It's caused by third-party drivers and libraries loaded. Remember, you never have a machine running just Windows.

If this were a bug in Windows, it would be reproducable by everyone running your version of Windows. I have never had this happen unless I install a bogus driver or other software. In all cases, I create a restore point before installing anything. When I have problems such as you describe, I go back to the previous configuration and the problem goes away.

Everyone blames all problems they have with their computer on Bill Gates. If you ask me, it's a cop out. You are the only one responsible for what's on your box.

Jim

HAhahahaha....
something tlls me Bill Gates doesn't give a rat's a--.
Windows is a creation of the devil, himself.....GO LINUX.

HERE is something for all windows users(except win 2000) XP yes will work
Click start – run
Then type msconfig
Hit enter/return
When it opens click the last tab
There are a number of things you can deselect
MAINLY microsoft office
That will save you at least 20 M RAM
And a few seconds on start up

Enjoy
Acts7
We are echoes of the Messiah
How loud are you shouting

As a disclaimer to anyone doubting the demon theory, and ahh yes, has happened a few times on different systems and in different locals....

Had a crash in Vegas - specifics unimportant, and quite a bit of difficulty in getting win XP to restart as Vegas would not halt, got hung. During shutdown windows bluescreened to protect my system from damage. On self reboot after the requisite memory dump (which I loath!), the display indicated critical system files were missing! Further pursueing the problem, got all sorts of results, each indicating that I'd lost my poor hard drive.

Actually it turned out I had -> somehow *something* reset the bios removing the primary ide channel! It was actually much, MUCH harder scrubbing up the sweat mixed with blood then it was to hit F3 in the bios setup to correct the prob.

FWIW, I've known people whom could stop computers, and one who when sufficiently ticked would invariably cause disk crashes with resultant new bad clusters.

RE: Gates and company - they've done some stupid stuff, as had many a software company, perhaps magnified by their monopolistic status, pratical or otherwise. Doubting that is as doubting the importance of oxygen.

RE: Word & the original problem BillyBoy posted. Many software developers have some notion you want their software running constantly. This includes creative, Roxio, a host of others & of course MS when it comes to office &/or some convenience features in windows. To my knowledge the word &/or office stuff runs so that it opens faster when you want it too.

IMO best practice is to use Stop It or similar software to check on what prog are actually running when you first start windows. And track them down, eliminating the needless ones, one at a time - you can normally tell the windows junk by searching for the filename and then reading the files properties -> if it comes with windows for example. Then remove these useless apps from the start menu (under startup), or the registry (search for keys with run & bookmark them). In a few cases I've actually had to rename files as with stimon.exe.

In XP if you want a shock, check out the prefetch folder! Then empty it!

HAHAHAH and then some. Well, for what its worth, I had a nice "discussion" with an person claiming to be a Microsoft spokeperson about WINDOWS XP in on of the Microsoft newsgroups several months ago. His email originated from the expected source to be Microsoft, but who knows....

Among other things he acknowledged "issues" with Exploer, some of which were suppose to be addressed in Service Pack One. Obviously there weren't. At least not all of them. This wasn't that exactly it, but another that caused Exploer to hog CPU cycles out of the blue for no apparant reason, also the infamous icon redrawing issue, Sorry, Explorer needs to shut down, blah, blah, blah, which by the way I've seen with nothing running but Windows when I was simply sorting files in Explorer. and had a very min system running.

I guess time to try another shell.

By the way Microsoft ACKNOWLEDGES Explorer is buggy.

Just a few samples. The first is similar, but not the same, and no the "fix" Microsoft offers, don't really, see below.

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;317751
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;307028
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;323681
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;298317

Can't find the one I was referring too. Oh well... Trust me... Windows Explorer is very buggy. If not for you, consider yourself lucky. Spend some time at Microsoft's Knowledgebase and see HOW buggy. You would think that would be smart enough to fix it. Oops... we're talking Microsoft, not SoFo.

What really bugged me was in my discussion, you CAN'T get the fix Microsoft "offers" unless and until you talk some Microsoft person accepting your problem, being this problem, so in typical Microsoft arrogance, they offer a fix, even name the file and then don't let you download it.

I think the reason the fix is not offered as a download for everyone right now, is because it will be undergoing more testing and released in a service pack. SOFO has been doing exactly the same thing, right (e.g. with DVA)? Offering interim fixes to those who really need them, while asking others to wait until the next official update.

explorer certainly can hang/crash due to bugs in explorer itself, not 3rd party code. But note that even when you have "nothing running but Windows", 3rd party code you have installed may have registered to have itself loaded into explorer's process, so it's not necessarily explorer at fault.

Several of the Explorer bugs have been around since Windows 98. You would think a "final" patch would be ready by now. My complain is if there is some possible fix, why does Microsoft say they maybe have one, dangle it in front of users and then say, no you can't have it. Yes, I asked and I'm still waiting for a response I sent around six months ago. No response of course.

Every time I see Explorer redraw the desktop icons my blood pressure goes up 20 points not knowing well else its messing up, thinking back to my discussion with this guy. LOL! The problem with Microsoft is they are as arrogant as hell. No other software company gets aways with so much crap. You could spend time really looking through their Knowledgebase and literally find hundreds of known bugs they admit to and STILL haven't done a damn thing about.

I'm trying an alternate to Windows Explorer, I'll let you know how it works... can't be any worse then Microsoft crap.

http://www.pcworld.com/downloads/file_description/0,fid,22040,00.asp

I would like to know howit works for you as a long time gates hater I am always looking for ways to eliminate any of his programs I can. Will vegas 4 run in linux?

One feature I like better than Explorer is it has a customizeable 'thumbnail' window which you can set along the detail view to view graphics one at a time as you click on the file name in the list. Very similar to Explorer in how it works, you don't even install it, just unzip to a folder. It seems to live with Windows and Explorer fine...so far. Its freeware, (author accepts donations).

I don't think Vegas can run under Linux, wish it would run under BeOS which is a 64 bit OS that's very fast and designed from the ground up for multimedia using a 64 bit multitasking file system. Been around for awhile, never caught on... at least not yet.

OK. Windows is not perfect and does things we're not sure about etc.

BUT

The fact that we're able to sit there, edit video, post complaints at all is largely due to what Gatesy and his company has achieved.

Also - he doesn't just sit there watching his wealth grow, he's initiated huge projects to help people in the third world have better lives - why do so many try and demonize the fella?

Remember - your strongest protest against MS is to stop using their products.

The biggest thing Billy G and company have achived is pulling the wool over the consumer's eyes and over time getting them to accept its "normal" to release software they know is broken, then have the nerve every 18 months or so to demand you pay $150 or more for the next version that's surprise, also broken.

I admire Gates, for what he's done and plans to due with his personal wealth. That doesn't excuse the fact his company knowingly dumps broken software on the consumer and turns a deaf ear to known issues like the one I raised.

There simply isn't any excuse for a core element of the OS to enter some endless loop and hog 80-90% of CPU cycles. Its much worse they they know its a problem, admit it, say they have a possible fix, tell the consumer about it, and then say sorry you can't have it. Only Miicrosoft is so arrogant.