Explorer keeps reloading at startup

[Merlorz]

So I work at a IT support and I've found an odd problem that I can't seem to find the cause of I'm asking if any of you guys expierienced it and if you know anything I could use.

 

So what happens is when you start up the PC it works fine untill you log in (Typing in the Password works fine) but once you are logged in Explorer seems to keep restarting.

It doesn't even give a message that explorer isn't working so it just looks like the screen is flickering.

Once you go to Safe mode or start op in Diagnose Mode it all works fine.

So I've looked at the Event log and it doesn't seem to be caused by any third party software.

 

On windows 10 the problem is most of the time pretty straight forward to solve, you just downgrade back to W7/W8 and upgrade again. That does the job most of the time.

But on Windows 8/8.1 you need to format or renew the Windows

 

I've scanned for rootkits and various malware with TDSSkiller, Malwarebytes, SAS (SuperAntiSpyware), ... but didn't find anything worth noticing on any of the cases.

 

And I don't have alot of time to look in depth because the cranky customers like to complain about waiting a couple of extra hours..

 

(And its an epidemic.. and I don't find anything on the Internet about it )

[Lord_Karango17]

I have had that happen on 2 computers now, and still dont know the root of the issue. As you said, my dads PC got this after upgrading to windows 10, and reverting to windows 8 solved it, however when my pc did this on windows 8, the only way of fixing it was a complete reinstall.

 

It was very out of a blue as well, not linked to any new driver installs/ hardware... very strange and something I had never heard about until it happened...

 

One thing I noticed is in task manager the "COM surrogate" process was multiplying with every restart of the explorer.exe. It was filling up the ram slowly as well, so I was absolutely dumbfounded, as I had no idea what this process did other than "windows functions" 

[Altecice]

check the display drivers? If not it has to be a program that hooks into Explorer.exe. Maybe in the Right-Click context menu?

[Merlorz]

check the display drivers? If not it has to be a program that hooks into Explorer.exe. Maybe in the Right-Click context menu?

 

Display drivers are all latest.

Context menu would suprise me tho..

[Altecice]

Display drivers are all latest.

Context menu would suprise me tho..

 

I was meaning that if you use a program that places a shortcut in the context menu it can cause issues if its not W10 supported. Although I just noticed that my laptop was doing exactly as you explained today.... Must be a W10 bug.