Windows Explorer in Vista continually Crashing

Hi all,

Just yesterday i was silly enough to say i would take a look at a friends computer, This friend not being completely computer literate had some work done on her computer. From what i understand a new mother board has been installed beyond that i am not sure, I have a feeling that maybe vista might have been reinstalled over the top of the oringinal install or somthing like that as it states that activation is required again.

Any ways i have a look at this computer and although it boots up and you can log into vista, thats about where the functionality ends, 9 out of ten times when trying to open a folder, program, file, pretty much anything explorer will crash. It also has trouble launching most programs with a default application module error. (These errors also occur when in safe mode)

This is about all the details i have as i will be picking up the computer tonight to have a better look, i just wanted some advice as to where this kind of problem may be originating from. I belive there is a heap of files on there she has not backed up so i dont realy want to reformat unless i have to. any advice on where to start would be greatly appreciated

Cheers in advance

 

Find memtest on this site, write it to a disk, boot it up on that pc for 5-8 passes. Takes hours or a night. If errors exist, open up the case & jot down the memory make & model. Google them for specs. Put these specs in the bios of that pc. Most common is memory voltage too low for multiple sticks of ram.

If there are no errors in memtest, it's a software issue. That means Vista. Boot to safe mode, run a registry cleaner like EasyCleaner, do a full disk scan (under my computer), google cureit & run a quick scan, followed by a full malware scan on her pc. If that still doesn't fix it, you might have to do a repair install. You won't lose anything.

 

Cheers Akhilles.

Running he test now hopefully will have it up and running soon.