My PC keeps freezing when changing from one user to another user. I am using an HP computer with Vista.
Explorer.exe Crash
It sounds as though the Windows interface may be to blame. When your computer freezes after switching from one user to another are you able to get into Task Manager by pressing Control + Alt + Delete? If so, you should be able to stop the explorer.exe process and then restart it. To do this, click on the Processes tab and find explorer.exe in the list. Select it and then click the End Process button. Explorer.exe is responsible for the user interface so once it has been stopped all of your icons on the desktop will disappear. They’ll reappear once you relaunch the process.
To restart explorer.exe, go to the Task Manager’s File menu and click on New Task (Run). Type explorer.exe and then click the OK button. Your icons should reappear. However, if your computer is completely frozen, then this may not be a viable solution.
Fast User Switching
If you have Fast User Switching enabled for each user, you may be able to solve this problem by disabling this feature. Fast User Switching is turned on by default. This feature allows two or more computer users to share a single PC with their own user preferences, settings, programs, and document storage folders and then quickly switch from one user to the next without having to completely log off. For example, if you have several programs open and your partner needs to check his email, your partner could log on and check his email. Once done, you could switch back to your account and pick up where you left off. Your programs would still be open and waiting for you.
Unfortunately, Fast User Switching can tax the system as it takes quite a bit of memory to maintain the current user’s session. Try turning it off to see if you can switch users the traditional way without your computer crashing. If so, you will need to adjust to regular user switching which means the first user will need to log off before the second user logs on.
To turn off Fast User Switching in Windows XP, go to the Control Panel and click on the User Accounts icon. Select a user and click the option that says, “Change the way users log off.” Remove the tick mark in the Fast User Switching box.
It’s more complicated to turn off Fast User Switching in Windows Vista. There’s a good tutorial offering several methods over at Windows Vista Forums titled Fast User Switching. Before you go through the steps, try switching users by logging off the first user and then logging on the second user. If the computer doesn’t freeze, you’ll know that Fast User Switching is the cause of the problem. From there, you can either disable Fast User Switching or get into the habit of logging off instead of switching users.
Celeste Stewart | August 24th, 2009
You can leave a comment, or trackback from your own site.
