Windows Explorer stops working when opening pictures

When I'm using Windows Explorer, I can open up a word pad file or music or
anything with no problem. But when I open up a picture, it freezes up for a
second, then it won't let me close it and a few minutes later, the screen
goes blank, the toolbar at the bottom diappears and then slowly, the screen
comes back and Windows Explorer has closed. If anybody else has had this
problem and knows how to fix it, please let me know! Thanks.

On Thu, 27 Sep 2007 12:27:00 -0700, MyrtleJ
<MyrtleJ@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote:

>When I'm using Windows Explorer, I can open up a word pad file or music or
>anything with no problem. But when I open up a picture, it freezes up for a
>second, then it won't let me close it and a few minutes later, the screen
>goes blank, the toolbar at the bottom diappears and then slowly, the screen
>comes back and Windows Explorer has closed. If anybody else has had this
>problem and knows how to fix it, please let me know! Thanks.

Sadly Windows Explorer isn't that great a shell and worse it is so
integrated into the OS you can never truly get rid of it or even turn
it completely off. It is always lurking in the background eating up
system resources.

What I do, and many may find it a better option is use a different
thumbnail generator/graphic player for viewing your photos and other
video files. I like XnView. It has a small footprint, is free, works
fine with Vista and it much faster. Best of all it rarely has trouble
opening any graphic file type and rarely if ever crashes. You don't
have to give up on Windows Explorer, they can both coexist without
problem. In fact I suggest you also get GOM Player and VLC Media
Player. They all have their own strengths and each gets along with the
other and Explorer. You may find you use XnView more though once you
try it for looking at thumbnails. ;-)

There are many different options as far as how you can set it up. I
prefer to have the preview pane at the bottom. Then as you click on
the thumbnails that are shown in the top window pane than something
like an animated GIF starts playing right away, ditto for videos in a
miniature window, all very simple, just click on the thumbnails to
walk through and play you're whole collection.

Thank you so much! I installed the XnView and it works great! Thanks for
your help!

"Adam Albright" wrote:

> On Thu, 27 Sep 2007 12:27:00 -0700, MyrtleJ
> <MyrtleJ@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote:
>
> >When I'm using Windows Explorer, I can open up a word pad file or music or
> >anything with no problem. But when I open up a picture, it freezes up for a
> >second, then it won't let me close it and a few minutes later, the screen
> >goes blank, the toolbar at the bottom diappears and then slowly, the screen
> >comes back and Windows Explorer has closed. If anybody else has had this
> >problem and knows how to fix it, please let me know! Thanks.
>
> Sadly Windows Explorer isn't that great a shell and worse it is so
> integrated into the OS you can never truly get rid of it or even turn
> it completely off. It is always lurking in the background eating up
> system resources.
>
> What I do, and many may find it a better option is use a different
> thumbnail generator/graphic player for viewing your photos and other
> video files. I like XnView. It has a small footprint, is free, works
> fine with Vista and it much faster. Best of all it rarely has trouble
> opening any graphic file type and rarely if ever crashes. You don't
> have to give up on Windows Explorer, they can both coexist without
> problem. In fact I suggest you also get GOM Player and VLC Media
> Player. They all have their own strengths and each gets along with the
> other and Explorer. You may find you use XnView more though once you
> try it for looking at thumbnails. ;-)
>
> There are many different options as far as how you can set it up. I
> prefer to have the preview pane at the bottom. Then as you click on
> the thumbnails that are shown in the top window pane than something
> like an animated GIF starts playing right away, ditto for videos in a
> miniature window, all very simple, just click on the thumbnails to
> walk through and play you're whole collection.
>
>