Solved: WinXP Explorer crashes 0x80000003

[zetus]

My explorer has gone mad. Whenever I try to use it I get a message "Application failed to initialize properly (0x80000003). Press OK to end the aplication." I tried Spybot S&D, I scanned the comp with antivirus software ( F-secure, Ad-aware) cleanned ( CCleaner). I also extracted explorer.exe from the installation CD. I also created a new user. In safe mode the explorer is running but that is not the point. As you can expect all this to no avail.

I tried to restore system to a earlier restore point, but after that ( I mean after restart) I learned that system was not restored and I have to repeat Windows Activation. I did that and lost all restore points. Without explorer I can use my PC only by running a New Task in Task Manager.

Any suggestion ?

 

[mt2002]

In safe mode the explorer is running but that is not the point.

Actually it might be. If it is running fine in safe mode then the problem may not be caused by explorer.

Can you please run HJT and post a log? I suspect there may be something that is causing explorer to crash...

 

[zetus]

In the meantime problem changed a bit(I uninstalled a crap app - thanks for fileMon): I had explorer at the start but it crashed whenever I pasted a file (mouse right click) and restarted itself.

Here are messages:
AppName: explorer.exe AppVer: 6.0.2900.5512 ModName: ntdll.dll
ModVer: 5.1.2600.5512 Offset: 0000100b

This is from the EventViewer:
0000: 41 70 70 6c 69 63 61 74 Applicat
0008: 69 6f 6e 20 46 61 69 6c ion Fail
0010: 75 72 65 20 20 65 78 70 ure exp
0018: 6c 6f 72 65 72 2e 65 78 lorer.ex
0020: 65 20 36 2e 30 2e 32 39 e 6.0.29
0028: 30 30 2e 35 35 31 32 20 00.5512
0030: 69 6e 20 6e 74 64 6c 6c in ntdll
0038: 2e 64 6c 6c 20 35 2e 31 .dll 5.1
0040: 2e 32 36 30 30 2e 35 35 .2600.55
0048: 31 32 20 61 74 20 6f 66 12 at of
0050: 66 73 65 74 20 30 30 30 fset 000
0058: 30 31 30 30 62 0d 0a 0100b..

My PROBLEM IS SOLVED NOW..
I used ShellExView from SysInternals and by disabling and anabling groups of items I managed to find the culprit, namely: Hex Editor 3 by HHD Software C:\Program Files\HHD Software\Hex Editor 3.x\heshell.dll
Maybe someone will search quicker ...