When I Open Control Panel,Windows Explorer Crashes?

Fix It: Opening Control Panel Crashes Windows Explorer on XP/Vista

Posted by Michael Posted on December 28, 2008

Have you ever tried to open your Control Panel on Windows XP (or Vista) and every time that you attempted it, you received a “Windows Explorer has Stopped Working” message and your entire Windows environment loses all of its functionality? It can be very bothersome and extremely annoying.

This happened to me the other day and there wasn’t a very good explanation or fix anywhere (unless you do a lot of digging through forums and such). So I have done the research for you and found some work-arounds and fixes to get your control panel behaving the way it should.

I described the symptoms above, you try to open the Control Panel and your Explorer just stops working or crashes. Unfortunately, sometimes the Windows Event Log doesn’t capture the cause or culprit, only the result (e.g. Windows, not Internet Explorer, crashing – that is the screen shot to the below).

Most likely what has happened is that one of the items contained in the Control Panel has become corrupted, either due to an update or something else. In my particular case, I was on Windows XP and the Control Panel item in question was a control panel named “igfxcpl.cpl”. Googling it didn’t produce much that I could go with but eventually, I came up with the generic way to troubleshoot the problem.

In order to figure out which Control Panel item is the one causing problems, follow these steps.

Navigate to “c:/Windows/System32/” (or whatever drive letter contains your Operating System)

Sort the column by “type”

Scroll down to the items that show “.cpl” extensions (you may have to enable the viewing of extensions) or look under the Type column for “Control Panel Item”

Now you start a manual process of double clicking on each control panel item. There are then 2 options:

If the Item opens properly, that Item is ok

If you encounter an error when opening one, that is the Item in question

Once you have identified the item that is crashing, you can do a series of things:

Google the full name of the Item and figure out what it does. Then think back to see if you recently installed something that may use it. You may have to either uninstall what you had installed or find a new item to install on top of it.

Rename it (e.g., I added a “.bak” extension to it)

Delete or move it (only do this if you know what the Item is and if you plan on replacing it somehow)

Once you delete, rename or replace the item, try opening up the Control Panel again. If it still crashes, you may have another item or some other type of problem. If the Control Panel opens successfully, you are good to go.

The interesting thing is, I went back to try to test the bad Control Panel item later, and when I renamed it back, it launched just fine. I believe that while I had it named as a .bak file, I did a Windows Update and that there was an update that may have corrected the issue. Since Windows thought that the item was not present, it found the appropriate item and re-downloaded the item. (Of course, I could just be hallucinating.)

Please drop me a note to let me know if this worked for you.

Windows Explorer Keeps Crashing Windows 7

Scan for malware

Haven't thought about that

This sounds good

Scan for malware by using one of my recommended anti-malware! But I would recommend SUPERAntiSpyware because it can fix disabled things. And make sure you have a good firewall. Scroll down my answer and pick a firewall.

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Malwarebytes' Anti-Malware: http://malwarebytes.org/

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For GOOD Firewalls, download one or more of these from the following websites:

Comodo Firewall: http://www.comodo.com/

Makes sure that only known PC-safe applications execute. Stops viruses and malware before they access your computer…so it isn't too late to stop them. Firewall remembers which software is allowed to operate and changes its alerts accordingly. Stay current with the latest protection. Warnings specify the level and type of possible threat from each source. Tell the free firewall to scan upon installation and add all current applications to the safe-list. Easily access an at-a-glance snapshot of current security settings. Quickly navigate through the various parts of Firewall protection without getting lost. Preset security settings for simple point-and-click setup. List of over two million known PC-friendly files and apps. Privdes free firewall protection with the knowledge to let safe files and apps run. Firewall software learns your trusted programs to minimize alerts.

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cd c:\windows\system32\

mkdr cpl

move *.cpl cpl

STOP ASKING THIS QUESTION I NEVER ASK THE SAME QUESTION TWICE IT GETS ANNOYING TO OTHER PEOPLE, LUIKE ME, YA KNIW

YOU KEEP ASKING THE SAME QUESTIONS DUDE