Windows Explorer crashes when opening folders with image files

Question

I have a Dimension 8250 running XP Home SP1, with 512MB RAM and an Nvidia 64 MB GeForce4 MX 420 video card.

When I open Windows Explorer in to view files, it crashes in one of two ways when I click on a folder icon in the left pane (to display files in the right pane), either by (1) giving the following error message related to ntdll.dll,

“Windows Explorer has encountered a problem and needs to close. We are sorry for the inconvenience.
AppName: explorer.exe AppVer: 6.0.2800.1106 ModName: ntdll.dll
ModVer: 5.1.2600.1106 Offset: 00001ed3”

(the 'Offset' value differs from one instance to another) or (2) displaying the following message,

“explorer.exe – Application Error
The instruction at “0x77f5234e” referenced memory at “ox0000004b”. The memory could not be “written”.
Click on OK to terminate the program”

One other alternate message appeared when this problem first presented itself (today), but no longer appears:

“AppName: explorer.exe AppVer: 6.0.2800.1106 ModName: psicon.dll
ModVer: 6.6.64.53 Offset: 0000110f”

The Windows Explorer crashes seem to arise nearly every time (once in a while not) when the folder on which I click contains a large number of image files (e.g., 78 *.jpg files). I have not encountered this problem with folders containing non-image type of files (e.g, Word files.) I do not know if this problem always was present on my computer, but it was present when I began today (for the first time on this computer) to work with some image files that I copied from my other computer.

A more precise description of when the crash occurs: In Windows Explorer, when I click on the folder icon (in the left pane), Explorer lists all of the file names (Detail View is selected), with each file name initially preceded by a generic small icon to its left. Explorer then begins to change these icons to a Photoshop ‘jpg’ icon (I have assigned such files to be opened with Photoshop 6.01.) Explorer crashes after making 20- 30 of these icon changes (the number of files processed before a crash varies from one episode to another.)

Does anyone know what is going on here and how to solve this problem?

Thanks, in advance, for any assistance!

TAH

TAH · Answer

Follow-up to my previous message: I came across a posting on the site http://www.tek-tips.com that points out that using long names for folders that contain many images files can lead to the problem I described earlier. So in my particular case I copied the image files to a new folder with a shorter name (6 characters versus the original 14) and deleted the original folder. This change seems to have resolved the problem of Windows Explorer crashing.

I tried experimenting with this procedure by using folder names of varying lengths and renaming rather than creating a new folder. A folder-name length of ten characters or less seems to work. I had mixed success with simply renaming a problem folder with a shorter name – sometimes the problem was solved, some times not. Copying the files to a new short-name folder seems like the best bet.

Anyway, a good working rule to keep in mind for naming folders in XP apparently is keep the folder name short if it is to contain a large number of image files! I haven’t the slightest clue why this rule seems to work – perhaps someone else can explain it.

TAH

TAH · Answer

Another observation: this problem occurs while Windows Explorer is assigning icons to the file names. The icons are those belonging to the program with which the files are associated (Photoshop 6.01, in my case.) Since the DLL file psicon.dll (a Photoshop file located in the Adobe common files) was cited in one of the initial error messages, I tried removing this file temporarily (by renaming to no_psicon.dll). That step cures the problem of Windows Explorer crashing when a long-name folder contains many images but, of course, there are no longer any photoshop icons displayed in front of the filenames. So perhaps the problem I experienced is more of an issue of Photoshop running under XP, rather than an issue intrinsic to XP.

Are there any users of Photoshop in XP that have encountered this problem?

TAH

TAH · Answer

If I may be permitted to make one final comment on this issue. The short folder-name business I mentioned above is just a workaround. The best solution to this problem is to completely uninstall Photoshop (including deletion of the psicon.ddl file from the C:\Program Files\Common Files\Adobe\Shell folder) and then reinstall Photoshop but, when the installer asks what files you want to be associated with Photoshop, do not select the problematic file type(s) -- JPG in my case. When the installation is complete, open up Windows Explorer and in Tools/Folder Options/File Types manually associate the file type(s) to be opened with Photoshop and manually assign the proper photoshop icon. This procedure appears to completely solve the problem and now long folder names are OK.

Thanks to all of you who have taken the time, and had the patience, to read all of these posts. Hopefully, this info will be of use to other Photoshop users.

TAH

Message Edited by TAH on 01-20-2003 08:13 AM

tomfow · Answer

You are on to something here: I use Thumbs+ 4.0 on XP. Another icon-storing program.

I am glad this is not a virus.

So I am going to try the shorter folder names. Hopefully some brilliant savant will find the REAL cause......and cure.

Thanks for the tip,

tomfow

Windows General

Windows Explorer crashes when opening folders with image files

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