Windows Explorer not responding

[mmarkert]

I have been experiencing Windows Explorer crashes where the explorer window will hang and I have to "end task" in the Task Mgr. window. I am not sure if it is a general Windows XP problem or if it is hardware related. It sometimes when I am trying to view contents of a CD/DVD in one of my disk drives (which were factory installed), sometimes when I have tried to access files on my Western Digital external usb drive and at times when I've tried to access network shares that were "not accessible". Being that it's happened when I've tried to access different hardware drives I'm leaning toward something with the OS.
Though it's not a debilitating situation I am concerned that it could be symptomatic of a larger problem that could one day turn catastrophic.
Any ideas on how to troubleshoot are welcome.
Thx.

[justpassingby]

Hi mmarkert !

Windows explorer crashes could be caused by third party programs integrated in the shell. Please read this article on troubleshooting windows explorer and do some tests with ShellExView.

Another place to look would be the event viewer : start => run => eventvwr.msc. See if there are any errors in the system or application sections. If there are errors related to the times windows explorer crashed then double-click the error, click on the third button to the right (this copies the information in the memory) then right-click => paste it here.

Make sure you have installed all the latest critical updates from Windows udpate.

Run an antivirus scan (you can use Panda activescan) and an anti-spyware scan (try adaware and spybot S&D) and see if they detect anything.