I strongly suspect a rogue application (or service or bug) in my Windows 8 laptop which kills my explorer process and at times makes the taskbar unresponsive showing the busy icon all the time. Hence I have to use Alt+Tab to switch over between application. When the taskbar becomes unresponsive I cant even switch between applications, I have to use the task manager to run the explorer process.
I have 6gb RAM on my laptop
So how to boil down to a possible rouge application(I have tried almost all techniques but in vain) and how to solve this problem if there are no rouge applications.
I consistently see the following 3 errors in the event logs:
Fault bucket , type 0 Event Name: APPCRASH Response: Not available Cab Id: 0 Problem signature: P1: explorer.exe P2: 6.2.9200.16628 P3: 51a94434 P4: ntdll.dll P5: 6.2.9200.16579 P6: 51637f77 P7: c0000005 P8: 00000000000054ec P9: P10: Attached files: C:\Users\ALI\AppData\Local\Temp\WER7C5A.tmp.appcompat.txt C:\Users\ALI\AppData\Local\Temp\WER7C7A.tmp.WERInternalMetadata.xml C:\Users\ALI\AppData\Local\Temp\WER7D37.tmp.hdmp C:\Users\ALI\AppData\Local\Temp\WERC52E.tmp.mdmp These files may be available here: C:\Users\ALI\AppData\Local\Microsoft\Windows\WER\ReportQueue\AppCrash_explorer.exe_b6c9fc2275b8269316d2d695cbf3f2ff98e379_cab_13c6edd1 Analysis symbol: Rechecking for solution: 0 Report Id: 164f935e-f6ea-11e2-be89-60eb69184d3d Report Status: 112 Hashed bucket: == Faulting application name: backgroundTaskHost.exe, version: 6.2.9200.16384, time stamp: 0x5010a827 Faulting module name: KERNELBASE.dll, version: 6.2.9200.16451, time stamp: 0x50988aa6 Exception code: 0xe0434352 Fault offset: 0x000000000003811c Faulting process id: 0x205c Faulting application start time: 0x01ce8af7d0fda8cf Faulting application path: C:\WINDOWS\system32\backgroundTaskHost.exe Faulting module path: C:\WINDOWS\system32\KERNELBASE.dll Report Id: 188b1b81-f6eb-11e2-be89-60eb69184d3d Faulting package full name: MarthaStewartLivingOmnime.EverydayFood_1.0.1.2_neutral__p79skxyasf6gr Faulting package-relative application ID: App === Fault bucket , type 0 Event Name: WPNConnectionFailure Response: Not available Cab Id: 0 Problem signature: P1: Data Reconnect P2: 8007274c P3: WNP P4: Unknown P5: Unknown P6: Unknown P7: 2 P8: 244 P9: P10: Attached files: C:\Users\ALI\AppData\Local\Temp\wpn_5487237965553919453.evtx These files may be available here: C:\Users\ALI\AppData\Local\Microsoft\Windows\WER\ReportQueue\NonCritical_Data Reconnect_1249b4f85ef55958ef36b1d42e2e8e111cf3dd8c_cab_1cc161dc Analysis symbol: Rechecking for solution: 0 Report Id: e9a99e36-f6ba-11e2-be89-60eb69184d3d Report Status: 116 Hashed bucket: === The description for Event ID 1903 from source HHCTRL cannot be found. Either the component that raises this event is not installed on your local computer or the installation is corrupted. You can install or repair the component on the local computer. If the event originated on another computer, the display information had to be saved with the event. The following information was included with the event: http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink?LinkID=45839
I uninstalled the Marthstewart recipe tile (as it showed up in the logs above) yet the problem persists, Moreover I tried all the tweakUI cleaning tools and various other diagnostic tools but nothing seems to even diagnose the problem.
Update:
I finally managed to get the full dump of Explorer.exe it is a large file, hence I have uploaded it here(now deleted).
After uninstalling a number of programs with revo(probable culprit google drive was also fully cleaned) I got the explorer.exe back , i.e it was atleast running from the previous error 0x10000142, where explorer.exe could not even be started , but that was shortlived I again get this error when I try to restart the explorer.exe process from task manager, the explorer process just fails to restart since the last time it crashed , infact even during the boot time I get this error "Explorer.exe was unable to start correctly (0x0000142)" thus rendering a blank screen with nothing to do , you could only work in safe mode now!.
I asked the MS support team here , there are similar questions still unanswered by their team.
Update:
An answerer found Avast to be the problem for explorer nable to start, but the crash problem continued, now I have narrowed down the problem to the right click context menu only , whenever I press start and type something to search or click a tile , than immediately the explorer process crashes. Also if I right click any icon anywhere ,the explorer crashes. So now the problem boils down to how to resolve this right click context menu problem. So how to resolve this? Is there an alternative to the tile view as I need to access the control panel and various apps ?
Also is there any alternative that I can use to access control panel and other settings as I cant use right click nor metro tiles?