FIX: Vista Recycle Bin Causes "Windows Explorer has stopped working" DEP error.

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It has been said that man is a rational animal. All my life I have been searching
for evidence which could support this. --  - Bertrand Russell

Vista's DEP (Data Execution Prevention) is designed to prevent unauthorized or dangerous code from executing on your system. However, sometimes legitimate programs such as Windows Media Player or even Windows Explorer may trigger DEP actions, whether legitimate or not. One example is when you have files in the Recycle Bin and you attempt to open Recycle Bin and choose "Empty the Recycle Bin". Data Execution Prevention jumps up with that ugly "Windows Explorer has stopped working" dialog. 

dep

 

 

Here's a fix that works for me:

Open Control Panel, and go to  "SYSTEM". On the left side click "Advanced system settings".  Click the "Advanced" tab and under Performance, click Settings. 

Now click on the "Data Execution Prevention" tab. Check the "Turn on DEP for all programs and services exept those I select", then click the Add button.

Go to  your Windows directory and enter the File name Explorer.exe, and  hit OK.

This will bring up a window asking if you are sure you want to do this, just  OK the process.

Now reboot and see if it works.

I think Vista's DEP can cause problems on legitimate proggies  even though it's trying to prevent viruses.

 

If the above does not work:

Some file types, particularly media files such as .AVI, being present in the Recycle Bin, seem to actually be the cause of this issue. As an alternative, you can run an administrative command prompt, then navigate to the Recycle bin folder with:

CD $Recycle.bin

Then issue this command: (from within the $Recycle.bin directory):

DEL *.* /X /Y /Z /S

This will delete all the weirdo folders under Recycle.bin and their contents, zap all subfolders, and say "Y" to all prompts. With all the contents now gone from the Recycle.Bin, you should be able to open it and not get the DEP error. I've found that making this into a batch file doesn't work; you have to execute the commands manually from within a Command prompt.  I think its unfortunate that we have a 1 1/2 year old operating system that already has a service pack, and this problem hasn't been adequately addressed, but hey - you gotta do what you gotta do.

"BTW" Department

If you have any doubts that .NET and Silverlight aren't making their way onto platforms other than Windows, I suggest you take a quick trip over to Miguel de ICaza's blog and find out where all the excitement is coming from. I see some reallyreallydumb blog posts from so-called "experts" (who usually have some sort of axe to grind) talking about how Silverlight stinks compared to products like Adobe Flex in market adoption. Folks, Silverlight isn't even out of beta yet...

Peter has been active on the C# and other MS newsgroups, has had samples at gotdotnet.com (now codegallery.com) that have been downloaded over 56,000 times, and has written numerous articles for eggheadcafe.com, for which he is a co-founder, and MSDNAA sites. He has also been a technical reviewer on books from Prentice Hall, Manning and other publishers. Peter was a Microsoft MVP for 10 years. Peter was born and raised in New York City, and after a stint as a jazz musician playing contrabass with the Robert Hunt Trio, migrated to sunny Florida, where he was hired as a rookie Financial Consultant at Merrill Lynch in Orlando, specializing in Corporate Services. It was at Merrill that Peter realized computers and technology were his forte. He spent his last few years at Merrill developing real – time computerized trading and and stock charting program using advanced technical analysis indicators, some of which are his own inventions. In 1997, he moved on to architect and serve as lead developer on a number of innovative web-based and middleware solutions for the healthcare and financial services industry.

Comments

  1. Anonymous5:00 PM

    I will tell you one thing: regardless of platform, I fucking hate Silverlight because of the annoying and overly-intrusive modal dialogs I get each and everytime I visit a MS Community site (any of the forums, MSDN, etc). Pisses me off so bad, they couldn't pay me to install it now.

    MS needs to realize the telemarketing approach doesn't work. Attempting to pound users into submission is ridiculous!

    "Sir, I am not interested" != "Call back tomorrow"

    ReplyDelete
  2. peterbromberg5:57 PM

    Hmm. I don't get any intrusive modal dialogs at all. Then again, I have Silverlight 2.0 installed and I don't block cookies.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Phil11:29 PM

    thank you, your article fixed my problem :)

    ReplyDelete

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