Windows Vista freezing up question

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Yes I'm fully aware of the suckiness that is Vista (fortunatly my cheapo dad was not when he got me this laptop).

Apparently the Windows Vista freezing has gotten so bad I cant open any Windows Explorer folders at all without them freezing. If I want to retrieve or organize files on a jump drive I have to open up a different program to do it from there.

But I'm more concerned about the Recycle Bin. I have a bunch of files I need to retrieve from it but Windows doesnt seem to recognize it as an application despite the fact that it's on my desktop. That's why I cant open it from any other program. If I just click on the icon it'll only freeze up.

A lil help?

Boot up in a Linux livecd and use that to move any data from your Windows partition onto an external media, like a flash drive or an external HD.

The only problem with that is that the computer wont let me reach the actual files. It will take me as far as the recycling bin itself but it will only transfer to my jump drive as the recycle bin shortcut.

I need to be able to get inside the program and look at these files but my computer freezes up even then.

That's why I said to use a Linux livecd. It will have access to the data on your hard drive, including in your "recycle bin," but without running Windows software and thus without whatever problems are currently preventing you from accessing those files.

Or see if you get it to a restore point where you get a better boot up.
Or get it in sfe mode and that usually allows you to get around what is locking up the regular boot.

But I suspect it isn't Vista, I've had vista running on one of my machines for almost two years now and haven't had half the issues of even XP.

AStart looking in the startup or get task manager up and see if you can find something sucking up resources that looks suspicious.

If Windows Explorer regularly freeze, it's likely due to programs that you've installed. Check if you have any pre-Vista shell extensions and malwares. It could also be a harddisk or file system problem, but since these "different program" seems to be fine, this is less likely.


Are you saying you want to recover files from your jump drive? The recycle bin doesn't work on removable media, so if that is the case then you'll need to use some low level undelete program. If the files you want is on the harddisk, you need to be more specific about the problem you have recycle bin. Does it open at all, or is it empty? Try deleting a file and see if it actually end up in the recycle bin.

As much as I dislike aspects of Vista, I agree. It has only locked up on me two or three times over the last couple of years and is generally more stable than XP. One thing I've found does kill it is trying to handle lots of files. I regularly need to delete 10,000 or more files from a particular work folder and have to use the command prompt to do it because windows explorer just locks up for several minutes saying "preparing to delete files". Vista also has similar problems with zip files. I had to change the registry setting to stop vista from trying to treat zip files as folders because again it just killed it for several minutes - but that problem exists in XP too.

I've been a vista user for a long time and I came across these problems all the time, the only thing I can try suggest is to clean out the Temporary Internet Cache, maybe that would help clean out your problems a little bit.

If there is no luck, try defragmenting your hard drive and see if that helps?

you could try the following:

make sure you have no unessisary programs or services running in the background.

makesure that you have aero effects turned off. Also do a virus scan as it maybe a virus causing the problem also clear out your hardrive (I dont know if thats been already meantioned) You may want to try an error check. if that does not work then reformat. I suggest you get a desktop with windows 7 or upgrade from vista to widnows 7 on your laptop

Hope this helps
.

1. http://www.knopper.net/knoppix-mirrors/index-en.html

2. Download the .Iso file

3. Next Burn to a CD

4. Boot Fat Lard Computer with Vista

5. Go into BIOS settings then select boot with CD

6. Use Knoppix to delete files and clean up your hard drive

Should fix it quickly.