Hi All, Every time when I try to rename files and folders on Windows 7 it freezes. It shows "windows explorer is not responding". Any ideas what may be the problem? I had the same problem with Vista but never with XP on the same machine. I am considering going back to XP because of these issues. Thank you for your help, Walt

Are you doing your renaming and deleting from the right-click context menu? If yes, this problem is usually caused by ill-behaved third-party programsthat shove themselves into the context menu. Its possible that if you're using or had used some 3rd party program its not compatible in Vista or Windows 7. Another issue that could be the culprit is that could it be you're overclocking your system? If so reduce the speed in bios and see if that doesn't help as that too will cause freezes.MCSE, MCSA, MCDST [If this post helps to resolve your issue, please click the "Mark as Answer" or "Helpful" button at the top of this message. By marking a post as Answered, or Helpful you help others find the answer faster.]

Hi, This issue can occur by incompatible third party programs or virus. I suggest you perform the following steps to troubleshoot the issue. Meanwhile, Cdobbs's suggestion is also worth to try. 1. Perform a Clean Boot to check the result. If the issue disappears in the Clean Boot environment, we can use a 50/50 approach to quickly narrow down which entry is causing the issue. 2. Use ShellExView tool to disable some third party item. The following link has some info and a download to ShellExView which you can use to selectively disable third party context menu handlers to find out a problematic one: http://windowsxp.mvps.org/slowrightclick.htm 3. Run antivirus program and perform a full scanning. Thanks, Novak

Thanks for your suggestions, but it did not work. Any ideas what else may be the problem? Regards, Walt

Try to rename file and folder name in Safe Mode to check the result. Does the error persist in Safe Mode?Also, please run SFC to scan the system. For your reference, I have enclosed the detail steps from the link below:How to use the System File Checker tool to troubleshoot missing or corrupted system files on Windows Vista or on Windows 7Thanks,Novak

Rebooting is not an answer, as the problem goes away on rebooting. As I get this issue a few weeks after the last reboot it would mean I would need to stay in Safe Mode for a month or so to see if it comes back!SFC reported no issues.ShellExView and ShellExView /wow64 have a few non-Microsoft extensions, and disabling them had no impact - the problem is still there at the moment (do I need to reboot for the disabling of the extension to take effect?).If I kill explorer.exe and restart it then the problem goes away.Brainier

So this has not been resolved yet? I see it happen on 2 different Windows 7 Ultimate x64 machines, and I have read about others seeing it on 32bit machines. Anyone have any suggestions? Also, this may be unrelated, but file or folder changes are not visible automatically. A manual refresh of the folder/desktop is required to see what you have changed. In other words delete/create/rename a file or folder on the desktop or in an other folder and nothing appears to happen. A right-click>Refresh is required to see that windows did what you asked it to.

I have the same problem, been looking all over!

Me too. I've tried many of these solutions without success. I did not have this problem with the same computer on Windows 7 RC 1.

Have a similar problem: Windows seems to freezes for a certain time (or at least the concerned window). But in my case I found the source: AVG antivirus. It scans new/modified/renamed/copied/deleted files and this takes some ressources if they are big. Solution: I like AVG and its free, so I go on using it. When I need to do significant transfers, etc. I unplug the network and switch of AVG. However, some improvement by MS or AVG makers would be nice.

It's not caused by AVG - or at least not for me as I do not use it. I have Forefront Client Security installed. Epublic, you could try a different free antivirus product to see if it really is caused by AVG for you. Try Microsoft Security Essentials. Brainier