Quick fix: Open Sysinternals Autoruns, switch to the Explorer tab, look for non-Microsoft-signed entries with names you don’t recognize. Untick suspicious entries (uninstaller leftovers, abandoned utilities). Restart Explorer. The right-click menu loads without crashing.

File Explorer crashes immediately when you right-click a file. The Explorer window closes; sometimes the entire desktop disappears for a moment. The cause is almost always a third-party context menu shell extension that’s installed but broken — usually a leftover from uninstalled software, an outdated extension, or an incompatible utility.

Symptom: File Explorer crashes on right-click; entire Explorer window closes.
Affects: Windows 11 (and Windows 10) with installed third-party context menu shell extensions.
Fix time: ~15 minutes.

What causes this

Right-click context menus in File Explorer load every registered shell extension. Each extension is a DLL hooked into Explorer at startup. If any one of these DLLs is broken — uninstalled but registration leftover, version mismatch with Windows, corrupted binary — Explorer can crash trying to load it on right-click. The fix is to identify and disable the broken extensions.

Method 1: Use Sysinternals Autoruns to identify and disable bad extensions

The standard diagnostic approach.

Download Autoruns from learn.microsoft.com/sysinternals/downloads/autoruns. Extract.
Run Autoruns.exe as administrator.
Wait for the scan to complete (~30 seconds).
Click the Explorer tab.
The list shows every shell extension loaded by Explorer. Sort by Publisher.
Look for entries that are:
- Not signed by Microsoft
- From software you don’t use or have uninstalled
- With Publisher blank or showing “(Not verified)”
For suspicious entries, untick the box on the left. This disables the extension without removing it.
Open Task Manager → Windows Explorer → right-click → Restart. Explorer reloads without the disabled extensions.
Test right-click. If crash is gone, you’ve identified the source.
Re-enable the rest one at a time to confirm which specific extension was broken. Keep that one disabled permanently.

This is the targeted approach. Most context menu crashes are one specific extension.

Method 2: Use ShellExView for a more focused tool

For users who want a simpler context-menu-specific tool.

Download ShellExView from nirsoft.net (free). Extract.
Run shexview.exe as administrator.
The tool lists all shell extensions categorized by type.
Click the Type column to sort. Look at Context Menu entries.
Sort by Microsoft column (pink rows = non-Microsoft).
Select all non-Microsoft Context Menu extensions.
Right-click → Disable Selected Items.
Restart Explorer.
Test right-click — should work without crashes.
Re-enable extensions one at a time to identify which one is broken (right-click → Enable Selected Items).

ShellExView is more specialized than Autoruns for this specific problem.

Method 3: Reset shell extensions via PowerShell

For users without Sysinternals or who want a quick reset.

Open Terminal (Admin).
Re-register shell core DLLs (sometimes the issue is corrupted Microsoft DLLs, not third-party):
```
regsvr32 /i shell32.dll
regsvr32 /i shdocvw.dll
regsvr32 /i actxprxy.dll
```
Run System File Checker to repair any corrupted system shell components:
```
sfc /scannow
```

Restart Explorer:

Stop-Process -Name explorer -Force; Start-Process explorer

Test right-click.

This catches the rare case of Microsoft shell file corruption.

How to verify the fix worked

Right-click any file in File Explorer. Context menu appears within 1 second.
Right-click 5 different file types. All show menus, none crash.
Open Autoruns/ShellExView. Disabled extensions remain disabled.
No Explorer-crash events appear in Event Viewer → Windows Logs → Application.

If none of these work

If right-click crashes continue after disabling third-party extensions, three causes apply. OneDrive crash: OneDrive’s context menu integration can crash Explorer. Try disabling OneDrive temporarily — right-click cloud icon → Close OneDrive. Cloud storage extensions: Dropbox, Google Drive Stream, Box also add Explorer extensions. Try with these closed/uninstalled. Antivirus shell integration: third-party AV often adds context menu options for “Scan with…”. Disable AV temporarily to test. For chronic Explorer right-click crashes despite all disabling, an in-place upgrade install (mount Windows 11 ISO, run setup.exe with Keep files and apps) is the reliable fix — replaces all system shell components while preserving user data and apps.

Bottom line: Right-click crashes come from broken third-party shell extensions — Autoruns or ShellExView identifies them. Untick the bad ones, restart Explorer, and right-click works.