How do I diagnose the Explorer.exe freeze on Win11?

Question

Recently Windows 11 on my HP laptop started having weird explorer.exe issues. It seemingly randomly freezes the taskbar or doesn't render it at all. When it happens, I am unable to restart the machine via shutdown -r -t 0 until I go to task manager, terminate explorer process, and (re)start it again. The laptop is connected to an ASUS monitor, which I don't think is a factor, but with Windows you never know... Sometimes (but not always) the freeze happens when I close the laptop lid.

What is the best way to diagnose the issue?

---

Taskbar rendering artifacts ("broken"/missing application icons):

Hardware: HP ZBook Power 15.6 inch G8 Mobile Workstation PC Wolf Pro SecurityEdition

winver response:

---

Microsoft Windows [Version 10.0.22631.3155]
(c) Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.

C:\Windows\System32>Dism /Online /Cleanup-Image /CheckHealth

Deployment Image Servicing and Management tool
Version: 10.0.22621.2792

Image Version: 10.0.22631.3155

No component store corruption detected.
The operation completed successfully.





C:\Windows\System32>Dism /Online /Cleanup-Image /ScanHealth

Deployment Image Servicing and Management tool
Version: 10.0.22621.2792

Image Version: 10.0.22631.3155

[==========================100.0%==========================] The component store is repairable.
The operation completed successfully.






C:\Windows\System32>chkdsk
The type of the file system is NTFS.
Volume label is Windows .

WARNING!  /F parameter not specified.
Running CHKDSK in read-only mode.

Stage 1: Examining basic file system structure ...
  3985664 file records processed.
File verification completed.
 Phase duration (File record verification): 37.67 seconds.
  284085 large file records processed.
 Phase duration (Orphan file record recovery): 101.71 milliseconds.
  0 bad file records processed.
 Phase duration (Bad file record checking): 0.26 milliseconds.

Stage 2: Examining file name linkage ...
  95876 reparse records processed.
  5585752 index entries processed.
Index verification completed.
 Phase duration (Index verification): 1.66 minutes.
  0 unindexed files scanned.
 Phase duration (Orphan reconnection): 3.12 minutes.
  0 unindexed files recovered to lost and found.
 Phase duration (Orphan recovery to lost and found): 1.34 milliseconds.
  95876 reparse records processed.
 Phase duration (Reparse point and Object ID verification): 169.31 milliseconds.

Stage 3: Examining security descriptors ...
Security descriptor verification completed.
 Phase duration (Security descriptor verification): 53.48 milliseconds.
  800045 data files processed.
 Phase duration (Data attribute verification): 2.37 milliseconds.
CHKDSK is verifying Usn Journal...
  37820008 USN bytes processed.
Usn Journal verification completed.
 Phase duration (USN journal verification): 77.45 milliseconds.

Windows has scanned the file system and found no problems.
No further action is required.

 999057407 KB total disk space.
 491620524 KB in 2875064 files.
   1722144 KB in 800046 indexes.
         0 KB in bad sectors.
   4395967 KB in use by the system.
     65536 KB occupied by the log file.
 501318772 KB available on disk.

      4096 bytes in each allocation unit.
 249764351 total allocation units on disk.
 125329693 allocation units available on disk.
Total duration: 5.42 minutes (325500 ms).

Answer 1

This issue has happened before for both Windows 11 and 10 .

It is caused in a number of cases by software conflicts, shell extension conflicts, and damaged user profiles.

(1) Try running a Windows 11 Repair Install.

Go to the Windows Media Creation Link

https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/software-download/windows11

Windows 11 is running, so click on the Download button (not Upgrade Button) and select Download. Run the downloaded file (double click on it). You will need a USB key as running the download creates a USB Key. Run Setup on the USB Key. This will launch the Repair. Proceed normally answering the prompts. The default Keep prompt is to Keep Everything.

(2) If Repair Install fails:

Backup all your documents and email. Then install Windows 11 fresh. Install in an orderly way and check for Explorer option as you go. Restore Backups when done.