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My Windows Explorer has been acting strangely as of late. I am worried that I will have to do a system recovery to fix it, which I obviously would like to avoid. Anytime I open Windows Explorer and view any of my file folders, the Navigation Pane (that usually shows libraries and desktop and favorites and computer) does not finish loading. It shows an hour glass over the libraries and computer and favorites shortcut instead. Then, when I expand the arrow at the top to try to go to my user name folder or navigate to somewhere else, it says that it is computing items and it never stops.

I read somewhere that this could be related to the search index and that a possible solution would be to rebuild the index files? I'm not sure though. This has been a constant, persistent problem since last week and doing hard reboots and a system restore did nothing to help. I would love to know what the root of the problem is so that I could fix it.

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  • Is this a managed machine? If no, you might want to do what JustinD suggested below. If that does not work, you might have to reinstall Windows.
    – kush
    Dec 14, 2012 at 18:39
  • I'm not sure, what do you mean a managed machine?
    – Trey
    Dec 14, 2012 at 18:42
  • Is your computer part of a domain? (Control Panel\System and Security\System) Do you connect to network drives?
    – kush
    Dec 14, 2012 at 18:48
  • I'm not connected to a domain, no. It says 'to use a wizard to join a domain or workgroup, click Network ID'. So I suppose that means I'm not connected to a network drive. I apologize for being so slow on all of this. And thank you for your input, kush.
    – Trey
    Dec 14, 2012 at 19:01
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    Does this happen if you log into another user account on the computer? If not, it might be an issue specific to your user profile, which could be fixed by recreating the profile.
    – trpt4him
    Dec 14, 2012 at 19:27

1 Answer 1

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You could try and cleaning up your computer, clean out all the junk files on your computer and optimize it.

Wise Disk Cleaner

Wise Registry Cleaner

Download those tools and run the cleaners. For indexing options you can click your start button and search "Index" and option your indexing options. Click on Modify and remove all directories. If you want, you can add them back but you honestly don't need them. They are used for when you search your computer for files a lot. And in that case, if you search for files a lot just add the specific folder locations of those files are. Because every index also takes up extra space on your hard drive.

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  • Thanks for the reply. I will download both of those and try to clean it out and make it run more efficiently and see what that does. so it probably isn't anything related to the search index, which is what I had been thinking. I use the search sometimes, but I'm not reliant on it enough for it to be life and death for me. is it possible that it could be related to malware? I'm not big on antivirus programs, but should I run a thorough virus scan or something like that?
    – Trey
    Dec 14, 2012 at 18:38
  • It's possible. Also on the Wise disk cleaner defrag your hard drive. Download and install Malwarebytes download.cnet.com/Malwarebytes-Anti-Malware/…
    – JustinD
    Dec 14, 2012 at 18:45
  • @Trey Malwarebytes is used to pick up a lot of malware, link above^.
    – JustinD
    Dec 14, 2012 at 18:51

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