VirusType2
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- Feb 3, 2005
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Kind of boring, but I just wanted to see what you guys think about this.
I have discovered a bug in Windows XP (professional, service pack 2, all updates)
I spent all morning here - about 3 or 4 hours before finally fixing this. Did not want to re-install.
My computer froze, and taskman shows 100% cpu usage on expolorer for minutes on end, and the programs will not close.
I figured out to end the task explorer.exe - which basically ends everything... the only thing still visable is task manager and your wall paper.
Thats when I used task manager to 'Run...' a different copy of explorer.exe. from a different computer and it would still do the same thing when trying to access my 500 gb hard drive. (i got the explorer.exe from another computer using my thumbdrive)
Of course Windows would not let me move this critical file under any circumstances, even in safe mode. It's basically the program that handles all the windows. Anyway, so I closed it with taskman, and reloaded a different one.
So I couldn't find the answer. I wasn't sure if it was a bug/virus/malware or a corrupt explorer file, or just some program gone crazy, so it was difficult to fix.
Anyway, the hard drive still worked fine at about 325 GB and less.
Of course I never suspected I would be the one to discover a critical bug in Windows XP, after as long as it's been out.
If you have something like a 500GB hard drive with something like at least 327GB used, in Windows XP, windows explorer (explorer.exe) will lock up anytime you open a folder.
explorer.exe is the program that allows you to browse through the various folders that you have.
To fix it, change all, or most of the view settings for the folders on that drive to 'List' mode instead of thumbnail views. (with a folder open, click view, go to folder options...)
Something causes it to stay at 100% CPU cycles permanently if you try browsing such a large amount of data on such a large hard drive.
I've submitted this to Microsoft. Can't wait to see what they say.
Interestingly Vista launches at the same time as the availability of the cheap 500 GB hard drives now flooding the market. Call me crazy and you'd be right. But that doesn't mean I'm not on to something.
It's interesting because I have heard that XP isn't natively able to recognize over ... 120GB hard drives.
When you install a drive larger than that, the hard drive software should confirm this. WD software does.
What's also interesting, is that simply installing this 500GB hard drive on my old copy of windows completely destroyed my OEM copy of windows beyond repair, and I had to buy a new copy.
Anyway, just a heads up, If you have problems, disable the thumnail, tile, and icon view, details view and just use list view. List view is the most simple view and just displays the small folder icons and the name of the folder.
What's the old Bill Gates 'quote', "Nobody will ever need more than 64MB of RAM"
yeah, I guess the more things change, the more they stay the same. "Nobody will ever need more than 325GB of hard drive space".
EDIT - They aren't going to fix this. one more reason for people to have to buy Vista. If they fix it I will have a great amount of respect. I'd REALLY like to have a 500 GB hard drive with photos and videos, and still be able to use thumbnail views. Not possible until they fix it.
I have discovered a bug in Windows XP (professional, service pack 2, all updates)
I spent all morning here - about 3 or 4 hours before finally fixing this. Did not want to re-install.
My computer froze, and taskman shows 100% cpu usage on expolorer for minutes on end, and the programs will not close.
I figured out to end the task explorer.exe - which basically ends everything... the only thing still visable is task manager and your wall paper.
Thats when I used task manager to 'Run...' a different copy of explorer.exe. from a different computer and it would still do the same thing when trying to access my 500 gb hard drive. (i got the explorer.exe from another computer using my thumbdrive)
Of course Windows would not let me move this critical file under any circumstances, even in safe mode. It's basically the program that handles all the windows. Anyway, so I closed it with taskman, and reloaded a different one.
So I couldn't find the answer. I wasn't sure if it was a bug/virus/malware or a corrupt explorer file, or just some program gone crazy, so it was difficult to fix.
Anyway, the hard drive still worked fine at about 325 GB and less.
Of course I never suspected I would be the one to discover a critical bug in Windows XP, after as long as it's been out.
If you have something like a 500GB hard drive with something like at least 327GB used, in Windows XP, windows explorer (explorer.exe) will lock up anytime you open a folder.
explorer.exe is the program that allows you to browse through the various folders that you have.
To fix it, change all, or most of the view settings for the folders on that drive to 'List' mode instead of thumbnail views. (with a folder open, click view, go to folder options...)
Something causes it to stay at 100% CPU cycles permanently if you try browsing such a large amount of data on such a large hard drive.
I've submitted this to Microsoft. Can't wait to see what they say.
Interestingly Vista launches at the same time as the availability of the cheap 500 GB hard drives now flooding the market. Call me crazy and you'd be right. But that doesn't mean I'm not on to something.
It's interesting because I have heard that XP isn't natively able to recognize over ... 120GB hard drives.
When you install a drive larger than that, the hard drive software should confirm this. WD software does.
What's also interesting, is that simply installing this 500GB hard drive on my old copy of windows completely destroyed my OEM copy of windows beyond repair, and I had to buy a new copy.
Anyway, just a heads up, If you have problems, disable the thumnail, tile, and icon view, details view and just use list view. List view is the most simple view and just displays the small folder icons and the name of the folder.
What's the old Bill Gates 'quote', "Nobody will ever need more than 64MB of RAM"
yeah, I guess the more things change, the more they stay the same. "Nobody will ever need more than 325GB of hard drive space".
EDIT - They aren't going to fix this. one more reason for people to have to buy Vista. If they fix it I will have a great amount of respect. I'd REALLY like to have a 500 GB hard drive with photos and videos, and still be able to use thumbnail views. Not possible until they fix it.