How to fix Windows Explorer.exe has stopped working?

It appears that various issues can occur that will trigger this sort of error with Windows Explorer not responding.

For my particular case, I believe I found what caused it. It was a specific feature in a program called ZipGenius which is a powerful, secure, and easy-to-use free alternative to WinZip. The feature that was causing the problem for me was the drag and drop feature via shell extensions. I was able to disable the drag and drop feature using a different program called ShellExView which displays details of shell extensions and allows you to easily enable or disable each one.

I simply disabled the shell extension for ZipGenius and my problem went away! No more errors with Windows Explorer not responding.

It is also possible that you have Malware or Spyware installed on your Windows machine.

I was in a similar situation with Windows I got the dreaded Windows Explorer has stopped working message. In my situation, however, it happened when first starting up Windows. After Windows boots up and whenever I login, a few seconds later it stays that Windows Explorer has stopped working. It asks if I want to restart the program or check online for a solution. When it restarts it just says the same thing every 2 seconds.

After doing some research I have managed to fix this problem and wanted to share it with others. I am not sure if this makes a difference, but I found that it seems to have something to do with installations or upgrades that change *.cpl files in the c:\windows\system32 directory. The tip that I found is that it may be that you have malware installed on your computer. The advise I found was to use some sort of antispyware or antimalware software to clean your computer.

So I did just that, I ran antimalware software to look for issues and to clean everything. Once everything was cleaned up my problem went away. I can now boot up Windows with no error messages after logging in.

Its possible that Data Execution Prevention is causing your issue.

I have been getting this problem with Explorer.exe whenever I browser folders. I will get an error such as the following:

Problem signature
Problem Event Name:	APPCRASH
Application Name:	Explorer.EXE
Application Version:	6.0.6002.18005
Application Timestamp:	49e01da5
Fault Module Name:	StackHash_27dd
Fault Module Version:	0.0.0.0
Fault Module Timestamp:	00000000
Exception Code:	c0000005
Exception Offset:	0c4fc260
OS Version:	6.0.6002.2.2.0.768.3
Locale ID:	18441
Additional Information 1:	27dd
Additional Information 2:	b76caa7c2627bab0b68e16f682ad848f
Additional Information 3:	481c
Additional Information 4:	e8b1f521a253c187784888621f9fd9ed

From my research, I found that the StackHash error occurs when Data Execution Prevention is invoked and has an issue with whatever application you are trying to run. Here is what I did to solve the problem, hopefully, this helps someone else:

1. Installed all of the latest Windows updates
2. Installed all updates related to the program that was crashing
3. Check if the problem persists, if it does not you can stop here.
4. Click on the Start Menu, go to Control Panel, and then System.
5. Choose Advanced System Settings on right side
6. Under System Properties, select Settings from the Performance section at the top
7. Click the tab labeled Data Execution Prevention
8. Click radio button for Turn on DEP for all programs and services except those I select
9. Find the executable file for your application that triggered the error
10. Add that file to the DEP Exceptions list in the box on that dialog you still have open
11. Save settings

Maybe try finding the file/program responsible for the error and remove it.

This may be a more last resort option, for me none of the other solutions worked. I ran a few antispyware and antivirus programs either and they found no traces of anything. If you do attempt to go this route, proceed with caution as you could cause other more disastrous problems for your computer.

Yesterday my buddy started having this problem. I proceeded with the following steps:

1. Opened Task Manager by pressing the ALT+Ctrl+DEL key combination
2. Found the program responsible and right-clicked and selected Open File Location
3. Attempted to remove that file or related program
4. Search for file mentioned in Fault Module Name in Windows Explorer
5. Researched and then removed this filename as the risk seemed low and was not a critical Windows component

For me, I found files located in C:\Windows\System32 to delete, but again I would be very careful here. If you are not comfortable with potentially messing up your computer, proceed with extreme caution.

After I did the above, I restarted my buddy's computer and the error stopped happening.