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TL/DR: I want a power outage and crash-proof way of remembering what folders explorer.exe had open. And I'm aware of and don't want to use Total Commander and the like; stop recommending that, it doesn't solve my problem, I want explorer with all its integrations into the OS.

BTW this question is still valid for Windows 10.


I'm running Windows 7 x64 and my Windows Explorer (Explorer.exe) crashes every now and then. The last time it happened, I dragged 2 shortcuts to movies into VLC.

Anyway, even though I ticked the folder option to store Explorer Windows in separate processes, hoping they would act like Chrome processes, they don't. For a year now, every time Explorer decides something went wrong in one folder, it closes everything and I lose my open folders.

This isn't a huge deal, but I hate having to remember what folders I was working with and have to go through a huge tree to find that one folder I had open and open it again.

So my question to you is, Do you know of any program, taskbar overlord, something, that will remember what folders you have open, so it can restore them in the event of an Explorer.exe crash or even a system crash&reset? For instance, I'm using Desktop Restore by Jamie O'Connell to remember the icons positions on the desktop. It's a handy tool that lies in the desktop Context Menu.

(I have ticked the "restore open folders on startup" obviously, but that only works when things don't crash :) )

I've also found RollBack Rx (also mentioned in this question) but I don't think I need to go as far as installing something like that to the master boot record. Though, it does sound like a handy tool. Has anyone used it before? How much space does it actually reserve? Because I don't have 1x my C:\ drive in free space available anywhere and I don't think it's worth it.


[EDIT] You were curious about why my explorer crashes. And I said it's never the same thing, and not that often. And here is an example:

My explorer just crashed when I right-clicked on a USB stick in My Computer (hoping to eject it). The USB is fairly old, and I had hibernated and waked my computer in the middle of a transfer from it. Of course, the transfer was long over when I right-clicked on the USB, so I don't think it's related to that. Anyway, one more crash I wish I had a backup for.

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  • possible duplicate of Program to restore open windows after crash Aug 17, 2011 at 11:31
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    @Mehper C. Palavuzlar - I have read that question. but my question is about exprerer.exe, just for the folders open, not everything else. Aug 17, 2011 at 12:07
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    I think it is more interesting to find the reason for the crashes. Explorer is extremely stable nowadays. Maybe I have had less then 10- crashes since windows 7 is out. So after the illness not the symptoms.
    – D.Iankov
    Aug 17, 2011 at 13:59
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    I think getting to the cause of the explorer crashes is more important and if solved fixes your issue. Or use an alternate file manager.
    – Moab
    Aug 17, 2011 at 16:36
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    @ D. & Moab. There's no such problem. Explorer doesn't crash that often. As a matter of fact, I get more power outages than explorer crashes. (I live near a big construction area and them and the city council are being douchebags) When explorer crashes, it's usually due to me doing all sorts of stuff while it's still loading very large picture/whatever folders, or like I said, the VLC thing, or old programs that change the aero theme and sometimes crash explorer along with it (or it happens during heavy load and I force kill the explorer process myself). I don't get the same thing twice. Aug 17, 2011 at 19:16

3 Answers 3

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I'd recommend trying a different file manager.

I like Total Commander, split window, multiple directories open at same time.

enter image description here

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You can try Restart Explorer. It recovers previously opened windows in case of a crash, and can force restart explorer.exe (and recover those windows opened before the restart).

It has to be constantly running, but it can be set to start automatically at logon and uses very little CPU (0,05% on my machine at the very most) and RAM resources (4,5 mb ram at most on my machine).

I'll link the download link and mirrors (which may or may not work), it includes the .ahk source (it's made with autohotkey for personal use and it's a bit messy, as well as being translated from portuguese).

Virus total scan: https://www.virustotal.com/en/file/e766d2bc61cc1cb8462b276e88c01f4709014841f91e8e50c105d310ef84a337/analysis/

Links:

https://www.dropbox.com/s/p61dfuhv1h0hei4/reinicia_explorer.zip

http://s000.tinyupload.com/index.php?file_id=35921458403833799495

http://www87.zippyshare.com/v/DeKukin2/file.html

Mirrors (the download is a .zip file, don't download anything that isn't reinicia_explorer.zip):

http://multimirrorupload.com/5i6ywjjvgawu/reinicia_explorer.zip

http://uploadmirrors.com/download/0XQ83CCE/reinicia_explorer.zip

http://www.uploadmagnet.com/02w213xea3ow/reinicia_explorer.zip

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  • Looks interesting, but how to use it ? Launched manually, and then just task-killed / restarted explorer with a script, but my open folders were not restored. Is there any command line option to ask for a save now, or similar thing to do ? My 1st goal is to kill explorer to avoid palette problems when starting old games like Moo2 or Starcraft, and automatically restart it on exit.
    – Balmipour
    May 12, 2018 at 10:56
  • I am very interested in the topic, and I am familiar with AutoHotKey. I am looking for the .ahk file, but googling didn't help. @atb Do you have the original zip and/or source code? None of the provided links is working any more.
    – Kar.ma
    Aug 25, 2021 at 12:07
  • Could you please re-upload the file? None of the links seem to work. @Balmipour Maybe you still have the file?
    – root
    May 2, 2022 at 9:37
  • @root I just randomly found said files in my programs, so here it is, in case someone is still interested. evilpotatoe.free.fr/Referenced_files/… I'm not sure I even bothered trying it in the end, and have no idea whether it [still] works or not... but now, you may experiment !
    – Balmipour
    Feb 6 at 9:13
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I was going to say the same and recommend xplorer². It's the same thing (single or dual-pane file manager) with a more Explorer-like interface than the GUI Commanders I have seen.

enter image description here

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