On my computer a copy of explorer.exe exists in the follow folders:
C:\WINDOWS
C:\WINDOWS\LastGood
C:\WINDOWS\Driver Cache\i386
C:\WINDOWS\$NtServicePackUninstall$
C:\WINDOWS\$NtUninstallKB820291$

possibly you could copy it from one location to the C:\WINDOWS folder

Yes, I knew that.......... some of the earlier HvD betas had a habit of crashing, taking explorer.exe with it. So, Tib wrote a little app that would restart explorer.exe with a simple 'cntrl-alt-insert' and Enter......    You can restart it by opening Task Manager, and using the new task option, browse to the Windows folder, and select explorer.exe there.

if u stop the explorer.exe it will restart automatically if u reboot .. if u deleted it then ud need to open task manager and look for it in your pc...then copy it to the folder u deleted it from....windows will stay runnning with out the explorer. but ud need either the explorer shell or the litestep shell to easily acess any files ...

I totally deleted it. What happened was I changed it to see if something worked. It didn't. So in my frustration I though that if I got rid of them windows would notice on the restart and ask me to put in the windows cd and reinstall the originals. I went into the recovery console and killed them all. then I restarted. windows didn't notice that explorer was missing so I was missing the startbar and all the other things that explorer does. Finally I just reinstalled windows. It all works now

I ain't messing with no system files ever again.

hehe actually u can make duplicates of them and put them in a folder .. and if u ever accidentally delete them u can use the task manager to browse ur pc and acess the explorere.exe from there then copy the stored files back to their proper folders ...

I didn't accidently delete them

the accident was me assuming windows would do something it wouldn't

i understand it wasent an accident. i was refering to how u can back up them just incase u ever do accidentally delete them .. or onpurpose delete them .. the stored files wount be used by your pc til u tell it to ...but is a safe and easy way to fix booboos....the prob with reinstalling with a windows disk is that alot of times it will re write all the system files back to the defaults ..so any prog that made registry changes or other system file changes now is null and void...also u may loose any updates u have done at windows update ....

Explorer.exe is the standard shell in Windows....the 'thing' that provides you that typical desktop interface....start bar, icons, time, etc.

People who use alternate shells [such as LiteSTEP] are [or should be] aware that a Windows OS will 'run' without it...as the Kernel is what is 'running' and that's separate.

Fortunately the Task Manager is intentionally separate from Explorer as well so it's a 'back door' to get Explorer.exe running again.

With the new-found stability of XP and 2000 compared with the 9x vintage, you may just have found that Explorer crashing is a novelty, but in 9x it was commonplace and one of the incentives to adopt alternatives...

get a mac

macs aren't as fun or cheap as pcs.

aren't as fun! that's the point for many people in getting a mac....now if by not as fun you mean easier to get yourself screwed over and having to figure out how to get out of trouble, then you are 100% correct.

You might try a repair installation.

and a comparable mac and pc are the same price. plus, macs are much less expensive to maintain

On the rare instance the explorer.exe crashes on my cpu....it restarts itself and everything is fine. Only a couple of times did it not restart and I had to reboot my PC. A proggie called TweakNow PowerPack lets you set this as an option http://www.tweaknow.com/