Windows 10: Internet Shortcut - Internet Explorer .URL causes explorer crash/hang

I'm on a fresh install Win10Home64Bit, 1709.16299.125. This occurs the instant I get to the desktop after installation and forever after. Right clicking on an internet shortcut (.URL) in file explorer or on desktop causes explorer to hang and occasionally crash. Occasionally, left clicking or drag selecting causes it, but it is less common. SFC /scannow, chkdsk /scan and dism /online /cleanup-image /(checkhealth, scanhealth, restorehealth, StartComponentCleanup, AnalyzeComponentStore) all report no problems.

So after a lot of googling and trying to troubleshooting everything I possibly could I finally stumbled upon ShellExView. If I disable the "Internet Shortcut" extension name, 6 others also disable. They are Context Menu, Icon Handler, InfoTip Handler, Property Handler, Property Sheet, Shell Link (ANSI), and Shell Link (Unicode). Version # of Internet Explorer is 11.00.15299.15 (WinBuild.160101.0800). File name for these is ieframe.dll.

I have no idea where to go from here, but basically all internet shortcuts do not currently work for me which is quite annoying and any help would be appreciated. If you need more info, I'll definitely answer the best I can.

:)

 

Lost tabs- how to get them back?

Hello,

Welcome to the Microsoft Community.

Internet Explorer stores certain info about the sites you visit on your PC in case there's a crash, hang, or unexpected shutdown. This is called Automatic Crash Recovery, and it lets you pick up where you left off in case Internet Explorer unexpectedly
closes. Automatic Crash Recovery stores the URL of each page you have open, each tab's back/forward history, the arrangement of the tabs, and any info you've entered on the page. Refer to the below link:

(Refer: Restore a browsing session after a crash, hang, or shutdown)

Reopen or restore a browsing session or tabs

http://windows.microsoft.com/en-in/...or-restore-previous-browsing-session#ie=ie-11

Hope this helps.

 

Internet Explorer freezes on Windows 10

Where is ' Internet Explorer crashes, freezes, or hangs' on the link page?

 

If the URL is causing the system to crash, stop using it. Just paste a Shortcut or bookmark to the Home or save to a folder for those bookmarks you may come back to later. It also depends on what web browser that you are using.

 

It's not a specific URL, it's any URL shortcut. I wish it were actually easy to stop using URL shortcuts, I may actually just keep this disabled which essentially does that, just to stop explorer.exe from crashing.

I'm not sure what you mean by "depends on what web browser you are using", but I've tried this with IE, Edge, Vivaldi, Firefox, Chrome, Opera. Doesn't matter what my default is set to, because it is always using ieframe.dll to deal with those links. If there is a way to change the dll it uses, then I'm pretty sure that would, but I have no idea how to do that + not sure what file to use per browser.

 

Ooookay, so between disabling it all in ShellExView, and trying to replace the ieframe.dll, then deleting it and seeing if sfc / dism could restore it, I somehow got the context menu to be removed, while still being able to right click and use url shortcuts. I'm going to reformat and see what actually does work.