This is a quick Windows tip that helps me from time to time when some windows in Microsoft Windows do not react anymore to user input and show that dreaded sand clock mouse cursor. This only works if Windows is still responsive. To shut down the Windows Explorer you need to hit Start > Shutdown (Turn off Computer on Windows XP) and click cancel on the shutdown dialog while holding the CTRL, Shift and ALT keys.
This kills the explorer.exe process and all that we have to do now is create a new explorer.exe process to access all windows and functions again in Windows.
Click on File > New Task in the Windows Taskmanager and enter explorer.exe in the window. This will restart the Windows Explorer and hopefully brought the desired result. You open the Taskmanager with the keyboard shortcut CTRL + ALT + DEL btw.
I used to kill explorer.exe in the Windows Taskmanager before until I found out that the method described in this post is the official way of restarting the Windows Explorer.
Restart the Explorer when Windows hangs
This kills the explorer.exe process and all that we have to do now is create a new explorer.exe process to access all windows and functions again in Windows.
Click on File > New Task in the Windows Taskmanager and enter explorer.exe in the window. This will restart the Windows Explorer and hopefully brought the desired result. You open the Taskmanager with the keyboard shortcut CTRL + ALT + DEL btw.
I used to kill explorer.exe in the Windows Taskmanager before until I found out that the method described in this post is the official way of restarting the Windows Explorer.
Restart the Explorer when Windows hangs
