Explorer stops working when connecting to workstation via RDP

Question

I have noticed on several machines around here that on the remote machine explorer crashes when connecting to it via Remote Desktop. Both machines are Windows 10, Win 7 to Win 10 also explorer crashes (For one second it stays open, then explorer.exe crashes and restarts). This is what I find in the reliability monitor:

Description
Faulting Application Path:  C:\Windows\explorer.exe

Problem signature
Problem Event Name: APPCRASH
Application Name:   explorer.exe
Application Version:    10.0.10240.16603
Application Timestamp:  565535f1
Fault Module Name:  ntdll.dll
Fault Module Version:   10.0.10240.16841
Fault Module Timestamp: 5708ac9f
Exception Code: c00000fd
Exception Offset:   0002f52b
OS Version: 10.0.10240.2.0.0.256.48
Locale ID:  1031
Additional Information 1:   466d
Additional Information 2:   466d1f3c7cd6d66c9a1ad15d46cd4043
Additional Information 3:   68b2
Additional Information 4:   68b25b67c650d3b73f19def9bd46eac1

I googled it but did not find anything helpful yet. Did some of you guys have this kind of issue already? (Maybe I should mention that all other programs stay running. Just all explorer windows close, the taskbar disappears and restarts)

Thanks

Solution

We had a similar issue on our systems, which was caused by the policy "Disable showing balloon notifications as toasts" in "Administrative Templates (Users)"\Start Menu and Taskbar" or as RegKey under "HKCU\Software\Policies\Microsoft\Windows\Explorer" "EnableLegacyBalloonNotifications"

Once we disabled the policy explorer.exe would not crash anymore after connecting via remote session.

Not 100% satisfying in my opinion because one loses a feature with that solution but it's at least something rather minor, because the toasts can be turned off in other gpos if one does not like them and also it's more of a style issue weather to have the old or new popups.

Comments

[magicandre1981]

10.0.10240 is the RTM from last july. update to 1607 (August 2016 version) and look if the issue is resolved.

[josibu]

I do have computers around here that are up to date and also there is the same problem.

[Syberdoor]

We have a similar problem with our computers (exception code is c000041d instead but explorer.exe crashes reliably on almost all of them with 1511 and 1607) I could not find any culprit so far though. Is the model always ntdll.dll for you?

[josibu]

No. Not necessarily. It varies between explorer.exe, ntdll.dll and comctl32.dll. But Sybedoor's answer solved the problem.

[josibu]

Thanks for your answer. I assume you are talking about HKLM. This entry does not exist on my machine.

[josibu]

Oh, there is one under HKCU. I changed and it really solves the problem. Thank you very much for the note!!