Windows Explorer constantly opening and closing dirs!

Hi all, i'm having a major annoyance with explorer.
It keeps opening and closing some dirs in my pc. It would not be some kind of shitty thing if it doesn't gave my pc a sudden and brief STOP everytime it occurs.
I have downloaded the FileMon program and I could see the programs that accessed my HD and what they did.
I could see that after closing every single program in my PC explorer was the only really important thing running it ketp accessing my Hard Disk for some "QUERY INFORMATION" in those dirs, this happens from 5 to 5 seconds.
This shit makes my CS:Source and all other games to give little hickups.
Iknow that this is the faulty thing since every time this happens the HD led turns up and the screen gives the small hickup.

I don't have the fastest HD as the OS HD but i know I have a pretty fast one, and the one in my work with a machine that is way slower than mine works normally.

The work machine doesn have the same stupid explorer random access but it doesn't give any hickup. Nor does my cousin's with a radeon 8500 (not that it should matter).

Does anyone know how to get rid of that shit?

Use the programs in my signature to scan for viruses and spyware. Make sure to update the definitions and software before scanning. Use ALL of them.

Should at least solve some of the problems.

EDIT : Do you have the indexing service turned on? Try disabling indexing.

Thank you, but I already use ALL of them (except AVG wich I use norton instead).
I don't know if I'm using indexing service in windows, probably I am since I think it is enabled by default, but i don't even remember where the hell I disable it.

You can just turn it off in the services part of Control Panel -> Adminsitrative Tools -> Services.

I forget the legit way to do it, hehe. Indexing service would most likely open up and scan all files and folders to "index" them . So that may be your culprit.

I've found it, i'm at work right now, I'm disabling at work to see how the performance will drop. But as I have said, at work I don't have the problem i'm having at home. So i don't think that indexing is the problem, I have searched the net and A LOT of guys are having the same problems as I am, and noone found an answer to that.

Direwolf20 said:

You can just turn it off in the services part of Control Panel -> Adminsitrative Tools -> Services.

I forget the legit way to do it, hehe. Indexing service would most likely open up and scan all files and folders to "index" them . So that may be your culprit.

Click to expand...

Right button in the drive u want it, and deselecting the last checkbox

I'm gonna take a wild guess at this and say that Norton is doing something. You mentioned Norton previously (didn't say if you had systemworks or not) and the file locations being accessed are the same EVERY time in that picture. So I'd start there.

On a quick and dirty search, GBPlugin looks like it's associated (although not exclusively) to the goback plugin (kinda like system restore) that comes with Norton. My guess here is that it's making backup copies of thing as it runs or it's having problems accessing a particular file. You might try to disable Norton (or uninstall it altogether) and see if the problem continues. Also, look for goback or archival types of options.

And, remember that the first thing that viruses (and, increasingly, malware) will try to do is to circumvent the virus scanner.

Just a guess, but it's a place to start.

arkamw said:

I'm gonna take a wild guess at this and say that Norton is doing something. You mentioned Norton previously (didn't say if you had systemworks or not) and the file locations being accessed are the same EVERY time in that picture. So I'd start there.

On a quick and dirty search, GBPlugin looks like it's associated (although not exclusively) to the goback plugin (kinda like system restore) that comes with Norton. My guess here is that it's making backup copies of thing as it runs or it's having problems accessing a particular file. You might try to disable Norton (or uninstall it altogether) and see if the problem continues. Also, look for goback or archival types of options.

And, remember that the first thing that viruses (and, increasingly, malware) will try to do is to circumvent the virus scanner.

Just a guess, but it's a place to start.

Click to expand...

Well the thing is... it is not norton, as I have disabled all the norton programs and it didn't showed in FileMon anymore (it showed before), i have even uninstalloed it at home for 1 day and it still made it
But thanks for the try.
BTW i have disabled the indexing thing, and boy.... WHAT A DIFFERENCE, windows explorer now show everything WAY FASTER than before, i know that probably when i search something it will take forever but I almost never search for anything anyway.
Well i still can't see why some people will have this thing and others don't, I have uninstalled the Intel App acelerator and don't know what intel INF drivers I use, i'll try to see that when I get home but I don't think this is the real problem.

Like I said, wild guess. Goback is also associated with Roxio so check that as well, just for the hell of it. I agree with you that I don't see with IAA would have to do with anything as it keeps accessing the same spot again and again.

Do you have all available SP's installed? Come to think of it, what OS is this?

When this type of thing happens, do you notice any network activity? For the heck of it, you might disable internet access and watch to see what happens. You can also run netstat -a from a command prompt and see if there are any type of odd connections.

Anything in the event viewer?

When you closed all programs, did you close processes as well or did you just close programs? Take a look at the processes list and see if there is anything there that doesn't look like it belongs.

For the heck of it, keep filemon running and see what happens if you disable the explorer process. You can restart it again easily enough.

Take a look through your services list (start > run > services.msc) and see if there is anything there that might not belong. Most things that are supposed to be there will have some kind of explanation. Pay attention to therse just in case.

Check msconfig.sys and see if there is anything running on startup there that shouldn't be.

If you get some time, post up a hijackthis log and other people can take a look at it and see if there is anything there that shouldn't be.

What is in the directory that it keeps looking at? Anything there that might give you a clue as to what's going on?

Also, for the heck of it, you might run system file checker to see if anything comes up odd. It's possible that explorer.exe may have been modified but let's keep this at the very low end of possibilities for the moment.

I've never seen nor heard of explorer trying to access the file system on it's own like this. Seems a little fishy to me, but it'll take some playing around to try to track down. Kind of a shotgun approach for the moment.

check out this website for a little more info describing the same file (and locations even!) of what you are experiencing. It's in portugese so take your favorite translator. Looks like spyware to me.

Another thing to keep in mind about all of the spyware proggies is that they are only as effective as their definition files dictate. Unless you have active montioring running (teatime, MS Spyware, etc) then this may not be on the list of things to detect.

edit: it's especially odd that it's also located in the Downloaded Program Files directory... same place you might find an ActiveX control.