Control Panel open causes "Windows Explorer has stopped working"....

I am using Windows Vista since a month now. It was working fine so far but recently started getting some problem with Windows Explorer. I am not sure whether the problem is with Control panel or Explorer. Here is the scenario. Whenever I open Control Panel, my Windows Explorer suddenly crashes with an error message saying "Windows Explorer has stopped working" and after few seconds "Windows Explorer is restarting...".

This happens only while accessing control panel, explorer wont crashes while opening My computer, Documents or any other folder. Any idea where is the problem? Many thanks.

Hey even i started getting the same problem recently. I am not at all able to access my control panel. I guess this started happening since i installed a Software, however i have removed this software from my system but still the problem remains.

To confirm whether the problem was due to that particular software, did you also tried installing something new on your PC after which the problem occurred?

Nope, i dont remember properly if i have installed anything because the problem was started about 2 weeks ago. But i guess i dint made any changes to the system. Anyways, as per troubleshooting i tried re-installing the entire Operating system but surprisingly the problem remained as it is.

Hello Dakhshi, i think you should try out the steps provided here. I found it from Microsoft Forums saying something to look around at the .cpl files in System32. I did the same and problem got solved. It turnes out to be a file with the name ALSNDMGR.cpl. This file seems to come from RealTek. It was installed by Driver Detective along with a RealTek driver for my sound card.

Thank you very much for the help Pax. That really worked. As mentioned over there i moved the movable .cpl file to a different location and tried opening Control Panel, finally it opened after so many days. But later when i copied the saved .cpl files back, one by one, and restarted the control panel, again it got crashed at a moment. So i think the conclusion is Firebird2control.cpl does not work with vista.

this is an easy fix.
you need to update your realtek sound card driver.
Right click My Computer.
Click on Manage.
Click on Device Manager.
Click on Sound, video and game recorders.
Double click Realtek AC'97 Audio.
Go to driver tab and click on Update Driver, choose Search automatically for updated driver software.
when installed it will ask you to restart.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by kleezz

this is an easy fix.
you need to update your realtek sound card driver.
Right click My Computer.
Click on Manage.
Click on Device Manager.
Click on Sound, video and game recorders.
Double click Realtek AC'97 Audio.
Go to driver tab and click on Update Driver, choose Search automatically for updated driver software.
when installed it will ask you to restart.

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That didn't work because the update said, "The best driver software for your device is already installed" and "Windows has determined the driver software for your device is up to date" ...and my Control Panel problem has not changed.