What if your Windows Explorer Crashes?

Windows Explorer is one of the major program that has to keep running always for us to use computer. But it may some times crash due to some virus, anti-virus or other threats. Then, we generally have to restart the machine. If it did not work, the other options remained are to boot in safe mode, or to start in "Last known good configuration". But these options may not work always.

Some days before, one of my friends have problem in computer. He installed a fresh copy of Kaspersky 7 Anti-Virus. During installed, it was asked to restart machine and he did the same. Then after, the problem cropped. It gave error message like "Windows Explorer was crashed." It's the antivirus which is the convict here. It is likely the explorer in machine was infected earlier and the antivirus while trying to recover it crashes it. It is also supported by the fact that Kaspersky scanning runs when we logon to user profile from logon screen. The error came because Windows Explorer was not able to read some specific address in memory.

I tried to boot in safe mode and "Last known good configuration" but both did not work. I then removed Kaspersky from start up and also stopped the service from running at start up. The main thing here to be kept in mind is that Windows Explorer is just a program that helps to browse the machine; it is not Operating system or Windows. First, I pressed Ctrl + Alt + Del to bring Task Manager. Then, I selected New Task (Run..) from File menu. There I typed "msconfig" and pressed Enter. I then removed Kaspersky from Startup tab and also from Services tab. Then, I clicked apply and restarted the machine. Unfortunately, it did not work. Then, I have another idea to completely remove the antivirus. I typed appwiz.cpl, shortcut for "Add or Remove Programs" in Run mode and uninstalled the antivirus completed and restarted the machine. It worked. The machine successfully started like in normal condition. "Add or Remove Programs" can also be launched from "msconfig" (System Configuration Utility) -> Tools ->Programs -> Launch.

I have heard such issues with Kaspersky. Kaspersky should look forward to addressing this issue immediately. For a not much technical person, the only last option of reinstalling the operating system is remained.