I'm having a problem with Windows Explorer hanging when I try to right-click on a drive or try to use the File menu when a drive is highlighted. I can view properties of individual folders or access the drop down menus without any problem. I have to end the Explorer process within Task Manager to be able to use the system. This has happened on both a Gateway and Fujitsu tablet. Any ideas to solve this issue are greatly appreciated. Thanks.

Some questions:

Have you tried a System Restore back to a time before the problems developed?

Have you scanned for viruses and adware?

Have you checked the disks for errors and defragmented the drives?

Do you have network shares mapped on the machines?

Have you checked the Event Viewer for error messages?

This has happened since the system was new. Scanned for viruses and adware, none found. There are mapped drives but disconnecting them doesn't solve the issue. The only thing that shows up in event veiwer is that the shell was stopped and restarted (which is because I had to stop explorer.exe using Task Manager). I have another system mapping to the same drive shares and running XP pro and this has never been an issue on that system. To further complicate the issue, if I want to add a folder to the the local drive c:, I have to open My Computer by double-clicking the icon, selecting the local drive c:, select New from the File menu and it works. However, if I right-click on My Computer, left click Explore (which does open) and try to drop down the File menu, the system hangs everytime. Hope this helps. Thanks.

Did you check the disk for errors? Did you defrag?
I don't know if the following may be of use to you:
http://www.sysinternals.com/blog/200...-annoying.html