Fix: File Explorer is crashing on right click Windows 10

In case if File Explorer is freezing or crashing on your computer and you are wondering what to do, simply follow the fixes of this articles and the problem will be solved in no time. But before moving on to the main solutions you should go for these workarounds first to try out some simpler solutions for your problem-

Initial Workarounds–

1. Restart your computer and check if it helps or not.

2. Check if you are using an administrative account on your computer, if not, then log in using an administrative account and then check if the problem continues to happen-

If any of these workarounds didn’t work out for you, go for these solutions-

Fix-1 Use ShellExView to detect cause of the problem-

Shell extensions are mainly installed and managed by Windows itself. But, some third party applications also install their own shell extensions on your computer. File Explorer is prone to crash easily if there is a corrupted 3rd party shell extension in your system.

To disable all the third party shell extensions follow these steps-

1. Download ShellExView on your computer. Extract the downloaded zip file in a location of your choice.

2. Go to the folder where you have extracted the zip file. Double click on “shexview“. Click on “Yes” if you are prompted for permission by User Account Control. ShellExView utility will be opened.

 

 

Wait for a while as ShellExView will take a while to collect some information from your system.

3. In ShellExView window, click on “Options” on the menu bar and then click on “Hide All Microsoft Extensions“. You will be able to visualize only the 3rd party shell extensions in the window.

 

 

4. Now press Ctrl+A to select all the shell extensions at once. Finally, click on the “Red dot” button just under “File“. All the third party shell extensions are now disabled*.

 

 

Reboot your computer. After rebooting, your issue with File Explorer should be solved.

*NOTE:-

If you don’t want to disable all the third-party shell extensions in your File Explorer, follow these steps to find out the problematic shell extension.

1. Disable the first shell extension in the list.

2. Check if the File Explorer window is crashing or not.

Repeat these two steps until the File Explorer stops crashing. After disabling a particular extension, File Explorer will stop crashing. This extension (in general, the application) is the root cause of the error.

You have to simply uninstall that particular application from your computer.

Follow these steps to uninstall the program from your computer-

1. Press Windows key+R to launch Run. Now, type “appwiz.cpl” and hit Enter. Programs and Features window will be opened.

 

 

2. In Programs and Features window,in the list applications and packages, scroll down to find the application on your computer. Double click on the application which you want to uninstall from your computer.

 

 

3. Follow the on-screen instructions to finish the uninstallation process.

After uninstalling the program/ application, don’t forget to reboot your computer.

After rebooting your computer, check if File Explorer is still freezing or not.

Fix-2 Restart File Explorer process on your computer-

Restarting File Explorer process on your computer may solve the problem on your computer.

1. Press Ctrl+Shift+Enter to launch Task Manager on your computer.

2. In Task Manager window, scroll down and find “File Explorer” process on your computer, right click on it and then click on “Restart” to restart the process on your computer.

 

 

After restarting File Explorer, wait for a while and then check if File Explorer is working or not. If the problem still continues to bother you, go for the next solutions.

 

Fix-3 Clean boot your computer-

1. Press Windows Key+R to launch Run. Type “msconfig” in Run and click on “OK“.  System Configuration window will be opened.

 

 

2. Now, in the System Configuration window, go to the “General” tab and then uncheck the box beside the “Load startup items“.

3. Now, make sure the “Load system services” option is checked.

 

 

4. Now, go to the “Services” tab. Next, check the “Hide all Microsoft services” option.

5. Then, check the “Disable all” option in the bottom left corner .

6. Finally, click on “Apply” and “OK” to save the changes on your computer.

 

 

Reboot your computer, it will be booted in clean mode.

In clean boot mode, File Explorer should work fine.