Copy list of files from Windows explorer as text into an application.

Will windows ever add a menu item or something, to copy list of files from Windows explorer as text into an application ? I would run a DOS command (dir /s c: >c-example.txt) like I have done years ago, but as I’m sure your aware, MS DOS command line has’nt been availible for years and your Windows Virtualization is incompatible with my new computer. Any solutions would be grately appreciated.

Have I got good news for you:

There are a couple of ways to do what you want:

The first is the most straightforward, and is already in Windows 7 (and Vista for that matter):

1. Highlight one or more files for which you’d like to know the path in Explorer.
2. Hold down the shift key, and right-click any of the highlighted files.
3. When the context menu pops up, left click on the Copy As Path entry that has magically appeared because you’re holding the shift key down.

A slightly better method, IMO, though it takes a little extra work is to add an extension to the Send To menu to allow you to right-click on a file or files and choose Send To -> Clipboard (as Name). To me this somehow seems more convenient, as I got used to the PowerToys way back when. One such extension, that also adds a nice control panel applet to help you manage the Send To menu, is a neat little freeware package called Send To Toys, by Gabriele Ponti, which can be downloaded from here:

A nice feature of the Send To Toys program is that you can even have it put quotes around any file path that contains blanks. Handy indeed!

Windows Explorer will no longer copy files

On 28th July, I received a pdf file as an attachment to an email, which I saved to my Downloads folder. When I tried to copy it to the final folder, I received a message «Windows Explorer has stopped working». When it restarted, the copy had not been done. I tried a few times, both with drag and drop and with cut and paste, but the result was always the same. In the end, I had to go back to the original email in Outlook 2010 and re-save it from there.

Today, I plugged in my camera via USB and tried to copy a picture to my hard disk. I again had the same problem, but I have no other means of getting the picture on to my disk*.

Yesterday, 30th July, I successfully transferred files between my hard disk and my mobile phone and between my hard disk and my Kindle Fire, both plugged in via USB.

The camera appears as an external drive, but the mobile and Kindle appear as devices. It seems that I can copy between devices and disks but not from disk to disk or from folder to folder on the same disk.

Is it just coincidence that this started happening when the end of the free Windows 10 upgrade offer was reached? Has anybody else had the same problem?

My backup program (Acronis True Image) still works normally — I did a full backup this morning. I also ran a full scan with McAfee Total Protection yesterday, which found no problems.

*Yes, I could do (and have done) it by loading it into Paint Shop Pro and saving it to disk. I can use Word and Excel to copy doc(x) files and xls(x) files and use Adobe Reader to copy pdf files, but it gets a bit tedious.

Replies (5) 

As per the description, I understand that in your computer you are receiving a error message which is Windows Explorer has stopped working». I can imagine the inconvenience you are experiencing and will certainly help you in the right direction to fix the issue.

I would recommend you to follow the Troubleshooting steps mentioned on the article below to check if its helps.

Note: Please do not follow the Method for Perform a System Restore and Perform an In-Place Upgrade.

Disclaimer for Clean boot: Refer «How to reset the computer to start normally after clean boot troubleshooting» to reset the computer to start as normal after troubleshooting.

Disclaimer for Running Microsoft safety scanner: The Microsoft Safety Scanner expires 10 days after being downloaded. To rerun a scan with the latest anti-malware definitions, download and run the Microsoft Safety Scanner again. Any data files that are infected may only be cleaned by deleting the file entirely, which means there is a potential for data loss.

Hope this information is helpful, if the issue persist please write us back with the information in brief so that we can assist you further.

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Thank you for your reply. I shall try to follow the troubleshooting steps you suggested when I get sufficient time!

In the meantime, I have done some more checking and find that I can move files within Windows Explorer but not copy them. This means I can move files between folders on the same disk but not from disk to disk, since they always get copied. That doesn’t explain why I can copy files between disk and device.

Until I get round to trying the troubleshooting steps, I shall continue my work-around of loading files into an appropriate program and re-saving them.

Given that I use McAfee Total Protection, which cannot find any problems, and have Windows Update set to Automatic, my gut feeling is that the problem is caused by a Windows Update — there were quite a few on 20th July and it may be that I hadn’t needed to copy a file between then and the 28th.

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When Windows Explorer (not Internet Explorer) is misbehaving (especially when right clicking), start to suspect third party Explorer extension add-ons. You may also see Data Execution Prevention (DEP) errors. DEP errors are reported when XP feels threatened by a program and Windows will shut down the threatening program. Windows should never feel threatened by Windows Explorer (or Internet Explorer) unless some add-on is the cause.

Those would be Explorer extensions that do not belong to Microsoft. That means extensions that you added. Explorer extensions are usually okay and installing some applications will install Explorer extensions for you, give you a choice and sometimes they can be added without your knowledge when you install new software.

Explorer extensions are sometimes added as a new right click option you see on folders and files (like scan this file, open this file, play this song).

If there is a particular thing you do when Exploring that you know will cause the problem, that will help zero in on the problem and help you know for sure when you have found and fixed it.

If you can make it happen anytime you want, make an adjustment and then there is no message the next time you do whatever it is you do, you have found and fixed it.

First you need a way to see what Explorer add-ons you have installed now and a way to disable them (not uninstall them) so you can figure out which one is causing the problem. You may have lots of non Microsoft extensions installed you don’t even know about.

Download ShellExView from here to see which Explorer extensions you have loaded:
http://www.nirsoft.net/utils/shexview.html

ShellExView doesn’t install anything on your computer, it just runs and displays.

After you launch ShellExView (double click shexview.exe) and acknowledge the security warning, adjust the column widths so you can see everything clearly. Under Options, choose to «Mark Non-Microsoft Extensions» and the non Microsoft extensions will be in light pink, but on some systems that is a hard color to see, so click View,
Choose Columns and move up or move down the Microsoft column so it is closer to the top (Move Up) so you can see it on your screen without having to scroll left and right.

Next, click the column header called Microsoft (it may be way out on the right side of the screen) to sort the display (by clicking the Microsoft column header) so all the non Microsoft extensions are at the top and easy to see. They will say «No» and be marked in pink since they are not Microsoft extensions, something like this:

The non Microsoft extensions would be things you have added (non Microsoft) and are what you need to be suspecting.

If you see extensions that do not have anything listed under Description, Product Name, Version, Company or have peculiar names that looks like they might be just random numbers and letters, you might want to look at those first.

You can also Google the name of a suspicious add-on and see if there are any hits regarding Explorer crashes or DEP errors and what other people have done about it.

You might Google something like:

windows explorer crashing

You have to fill in the name of your suspicious add on.

See what kind of search results hits you get and look for solutions or situations that sound like yours.

I am not a trial and error advocate, but I can’t think of another way to do this.

Right click and disable the non Microsoft extensions one at a time (or perhaps in little groups of 3-5) keeping a list so you can enable them again later if desired. The result of the change is immediate and no reboot is required. Test your (right click) failure condition. If Explorer starts to act normally, you will know that some extension you just disabled in that group of 3-5 is the culprit so you can start to enable them one at a time until explorer fails again.

NOTE: One user reported that explorer had to be restarted after making adjustments. To do that you can press Ctrl-E in ShellExView and you will be prompted to restart explorer.

If you recognize any extensions that may have been added or downloaded recently, start with those first.

Disabling an extension does not uninstall the extension — it is just disabled. You can always enable it again later, so keep track of things by writing them down.

Disable them one at a time or in little groups (to make things go faster) until your right click does not generate an error, then reboot and test again to be sure. That last extension you disabled would be the suspicious one.

You can also just disable all the non Microsoft extensions, reboot, test your failure condition and enable them one at a time until you find the one that generates the failure condition.

If you have a lot of extensions, you could disable them is little groups, 3-5 at a time instead of 1 at a time until your system starts to behave.

When it does behave, you will know that the problem is one of the extensions in that little group and you can enable those in the group one at a time until the problem comes back, then the problem will be with the last extension you enabled.

The hope is that you will find the one extension that causes the problem and then you can figure out what to do about it — either uninstall it or see if you can get an update from the maker of the extension from their web page.

I don’t have your issue but I can when you disable/enable the extensions, the extension is immediately disabled, so disabling an extension does not seem to require a reboot but if you think you found the problem, I would reboot and retest anyway to really be sure the problem is gone.

If you post up a list of your non Microsoft extensions, maybe someone will recognize it as a potential problem.

If you find the offending extension that is the problem, please let us know what it is so I can add it to my list!

Windows Explorer has Stopped Working in Windows 7 [Solved]

Last Updated: 1 year ago

If you run into “Windows Explorer has stopped working” in Windows 7, don’t worry. You can fix the issue with one of the solutions below.

When you meet the issue, try the solutions below and then the error should resolve.

Solution 1: Copy file “explorer.exe” to another location

This fast and painless solution may work like a charm for you.

First, navigate to this folder: C:\Windows, and inside this folder, find the file “explorer.exe“. (Navigate navigate to the drive where Windows is installed on. In this case, Windows is installed on C:\.)

Then copy and paste the file to folder: C:\Windows\System32. After that, check to see if the problem is resolved.

Solution 2: Change Settings for Files and Folders

Windows Explorer would stop working if some of the image files are corrupted. To fix this problem, you can try to change some settings for handling these files.

Follow these steps:
(Note: This solution requires you to perform the instructions in Windows Explorer, you can use this solution when Windows Explorer works. If you can’t open Windows Explorer at all, skip this solution.)

1. Open Windows Explorer.

2. Click Organize in top left corner, and on drop-down menu, select Folder and search options.

3. Select the View tab. Ensure the option “Always show icons, never thumbnails“ is ticked as below.

Solution 3: Use System File Checker to Scan and Check your Files

The issue caused could be due to corrupted system file. So to fix the issue, try to check and fix the corrupted system file.

1. Click the Start menu button and type cmd in the search box.

2. Right-click on cmd on the pop-up menu and select Run as administrator.

3. Type sfc /scannow and press the Enter key on your keyboard. As you can see on the screen, the process will take some time until the verification 100% completes.

4. Check to see if the problem is resolved.

Solution 4: Perform a Clean Boot

First, reboot PC in Safe Mode and see if the issue exists.
If the problem also exists in Safe Mode, follow below steps to perform a clean boot to find out the root cause of the issue.

1. Click the Start menu button and type msconfig in the search box.

2. Right-click on the msconfig and select Run as administrator. This is to start System Configuration utility.

3. Under the General tab, select Selective startup and uncheck the box next to Load startup items.

4. Go to Services tab, check the box next to Hide all Microsoft services and click the Disable all button.

5. Click OK.

6. Restart your PC in Normal Mode and see if the issue persists.

If the issue is resolved, it mostly is caused by third party software. Then find out which specific software is causing the issue.

Refer to the steps above to enable those disabled services. It is recommended that you enable several services at a time then reboot your PC. Keep doing this until you find a group which are causing the problem. Then check the suspect services one by one until you figure out which one is causing the problem.

After figuring out the problem software, uninstall and reinstall it and see if the issue resolves. If the issue persists, you might need to uninstall the software.

After you are done with the troubleshooting, remember to reset the computer to start as usual:

1. Click the Start menu button and type msconfig in the search box.

2. Right-click on the msconfig and select Run as administrator. This is to start System Configuration utility.

3. Under the General tab, click Normal startup option and click the OK button.

4. Reboot your PC.

Solution 5: Run Virus Scan

If you have installed antivirus software, use it to perform a full scan and see if your computer is infected by virus or malware.

Hope the solutions above would help you fix the Windows Explorer has stopped working issue. If you have any questions, ideas or suggestions, feel free to leave a comment below.