what happens when you refuse to close a program?

[brc64]

Explorer has been crashing on me quite a bit lately. I'm not really sure why, but it's probably just reminding me that I need to format again. Anyways, today I decided to do a little experiment. When it crashed, I just moved the window with the Close button out of the way and kept using my computer. Interestingly enough, everything still works fine. I can even browse my harddrives with no problems. If anything, it seems to run faster than it did before Explorer crashed. The thing is, Explorer never closed. I haven't allowed it to yet.

So now I'm wondering if there's any reason why I should close Explorer. Everything seems to work okay as it is. I checked the Task Manager and Explorer isn't using any more resources than it usually does. It makes me wonder what exactly "crashed", and why it still seems to work. Any thoughts?

- Me

Edit: That Windows 2000 post threw me off and now here I am posting a message in Software that belongs in OS.

[JasonQG]

Re: what happens when you refuse to close a program?

Originally posted by brc64
Edit: That Windows 2000 post threw me off and now here I am posting a message in Software that belongs in OS.

Problem solved.

[_Kosh_]

Answer (only guessing): The OS has detected an error it feels somehow compromizes the state of the program (in this case Explorer). It offers to shut it down to prevent whatever part of the program influenced by the corrupted state from performing improperly. Some parts of Explorer might still work fine because they aren't affected or you are affected and will only discover about it later on because it corrupted a directory or other disk drive structure or a registry key, memory, stack, God know what. ../K

[Rik]

I think if you have an internet connection, Windows will secretly send information back to 'Big Bill' detailing your failure to blindly comply with Microsoft's wishes. You will be marked as an 'undesirable element' and will be added to "The List"...

[brc64]

Well, it's been over half a day since Windows politely asked me to close Explorer and I refused. What I find most interesting is that my computer seems to be more responsive than ever since this happened. It is very strange. I know once I close Explorer (and lose half the icons in my system tray) and it restarts itself, I'll be back to the same not-quite-as-responsive system I'm used to. If I'm causing permenant damage by refusing to let Explorer close, oh well.. I'm due for a format anyway.

- Me

[Frog]

A lot of programs use a portion of explorer for their own functionality. It's possible one of those programs crashed, which is why windows thinks explorer needs to be restarted, and you're getting better performance because that program is no longer running.

[dallasstar]

If explorer crashes, you have to REBOOT in order to get decent performance, you cannot simply close it. That just slows down the system.