johnvines
asked on
URGENT - Windows locks up when trying to browse to a folder from the dropdown
Hi all!
Please help! This one is driving us CRAZY! It seems to have affected all of our 60 PCs - Any time a user clicks on the drop down when browsing to open a file or save a file, the PC locks up. We're also getting a LOT of "explorer.exe has generated errors and will be shut down" Then we get "This program cannot be shut down. If it is being debugged, please resume it or close debugger first..." This just started today (11-24-04) We've run virus scans, SpyBot and Adaware and none of them has solved the problem. All of our clients are either Win 2000 or XP. Servers are all Win 2000. Does anybody have ANY ideas?
Thanks for any help!
John
Please help! This one is driving us CRAZY! It seems to have affected all of our 60 PCs - Any time a user clicks on the drop down when browsing to open a file or save a file, the PC locks up. We're also getting a LOT of "explorer.exe has generated errors and will be shut down" Then we get "This program cannot be shut down. If it is being debugged, please resume it or close debugger first..." This just started today (11-24-04) We've run virus scans, SpyBot and Adaware and none of them has solved the problem. All of our clients are either Win 2000 or XP. Servers are all Win 2000. Does anybody have ANY ideas?
Thanks for any help!
John
Any changes on your network, any new printer drivers? Did you check the Dr. Watson logs on these clients to see if there is any info there that may give you an indication as to what is happening? The log file that the Dr. Watson program generates is called Drwtsn32.log. Did you examine the processes that are running on the affected machines? Any info in the event logs? Are the servers affected, or is it just the clients?
ASKER
Hi sunray - thanks for posting so quickly!
Yes, it's the same on every machine.
The locking up only occurs while the machine is on the network - when we take it off the network, it opens things fine.
We have 5 servers.
Actually, we get the Explorer error and the "...debugged..." error seperately. The "...debugged..." error occurs when we try to shut down the application that we were trying to do the browsing in (like Word, Notepad, etc.) The Explorer error seems to occur randomly, but mostly when we try to shut down after the machine locks up.
Yes, it's the same on every machine.
The locking up only occurs while the machine is on the network - when we take it off the network, it opens things fine.
We have 5 servers.
Actually, we get the Explorer error and the "...debugged..." error seperately. The "...debugged..." error occurs when we try to shut down the application that we were trying to do the browsing in (like Word, Notepad, etc.) The Explorer error seems to occur randomly, but mostly when we try to shut down after the machine locks up.
johnvines,
As i asked previously, is there network drives attached in all these computers. If yes then what I feel is whenever you are browsing for a file inside word, it has to list all the drives and that might make it crash..
Did you update all the computers recently with a specific program ?
Are all the clients fully updated ?
As i asked previously, is there network drives attached in all these computers. If yes then what I feel is whenever you are browsing for a file inside word, it has to list all the drives and that might make it crash..
Did you update all the computers recently with a specific program ?
Are all the clients fully updated ?
ASKER
Yes all these computers all have mapped drives. It's not just Word though, it's any time you try to open a list of all drives / folders from anywhere. Even opening up My Computer causes it to lock up - and we only have 3 mapped drives to each PC anyway. Never had any kind of problem before. Nothing new has been added / installed to the PCs.
How do you mean "Are the clients fully updated?" Do you mean with service packs and such? If so, then for the most part, yes. There may be a few that are a little behind on Windows Updates, but all should be close.
When I say we have 5 servers, only one is a file server, the rest are a fax server, terminal server, database server and mail server.
valicon: No changes to the network - one new printer, a Dell 1700n. It's been on the network for almost a week now. This problem just started last night. We're actually not getting any dr watson logs with these lock-ups. And yes, the servers are affected also.
How do you mean "Are the clients fully updated?" Do you mean with service packs and such? If so, then for the most part, yes. There may be a few that are a little behind on Windows Updates, but all should be close.
When I say we have 5 servers, only one is a file server, the rest are a fax server, terminal server, database server and mail server.
valicon: No changes to the network - one new printer, a Dell 1700n. It's been on the network for almost a week now. This problem just started last night. We're actually not getting any dr watson logs with these lock-ups. And yes, the servers are affected also.
Are all of these machines accessing the database server?
ASKER CERTIFIED SOLUTION
membership
This solution is only available to members.
To access this solution, you must be a member of Experts Exchange.
ASKER
OK, sorry it took me so long to answer - we've been shutting down all our PCs. It looks like you were on the right track - we have all *but* our mail server, fax server, and file server (essential machines) shut down - and now we can open up My Computer, browse to different folders... We're going to bring them up one at a time to see which one is the culprit. (Hopefully we find it!)
ASKER
Turned out to be a bad NIC in the file server. It just wansn't bad enough to prevent getting to the machine in some ways. Thanks for the help!
John
John
When you say , you are browsing for a folder, is that folder local to every machine or a network folder that is shared among all pcs. If it is a network folder, try to disconnect the mapped drive and reconnect it to see if that would help.
How many servers are you talking about here ?
Do you which program you have currently opened that might be giving this "this program cannot be shut down" or is it windows explorer that is doing that..