Explorer not responding

I have been having the same problem every day for a few months now. lately it seems to be happening more frequently. i will first notice that my clock has stopped and i can't click on anything in the task bar. if i try clicking on start, i usually get a message that windows explorer has stopped working and i can chose to restart it from there. then it works for a while (less than an hour usually) before it locks up again. sometimes clicking on start does not prompt the error message, in which case i wait and after awhile it does.

I am running Vista on a toshiba satellite laptop. I have run scans with avast, spybot search and destroy, and adaware. i have also defraged and optimized my hard drive. my next step will be running thru all of the steps in the malware removal sticky on this site.

a computer savvy friend of mine suggested that it might be a problem with my heat sync, but we never got around to looking at it and I don't really know how to do so on my own.

 

Got a question for you?

have you look in your event viewer for any errors? ( i don't know if Vista has one) :confused

Should be like a yellow triangle, a red stop sign type. for possible errors?

Curiously could post the full error u get when u get the error.?
What IE version are using?

I would go ahead and go through the malware sticky here on MG.