Problem caused by Adobe Illustrator Shell Extension (aiicon.dll)

Hello, you just arrived from the Windows Error Reporting site because you received the response that Windows Explorer crashed due to the Icons for Adobe Illustrator (aiicon.dll) file.

Aiicon.dll is a component from the Adobe Illustrator software by Adobe Systems Incorporated and is found under the Adobe Illustrator or Photoshop installation directory.

An example of the file directory is: “C:\Program Files\Adobe\Illustrator 8.0J\System\aiicon.dll”

The absence of this file causes Illustrator thumbnails to not be visible in Explorer; however, from what I have read on the Internet, Adobe Illustrator has not shipped with the file since CS2.

If you don't use icon views much in your day to day work, here is a workaround for this problem:

Complete the following steps when Illustrator is not running,

1. Click on Start and then Search
2. Type in aiicon.dll
3. If you find the file then right click on it, hit rename.
4. Change the name aiicon.dll to aiicon.old
5. Reboot Windows.

If you don’t find the file using search method then do following when the Illustrator is not running and hidden file view option is enabled.

1. Go to My Computer
2. Double click on ‘C’ drive
3. Go to Program files
4. Go to Adobe
5. Go to Illustrator (whichever version you have)
6. Go to System
7. Right click on the file and rename aiicon.dll to aiicon.old
8. Reboot Windows

You can also use Autoruns and disable the Adobe Illustrator Shell Extension, but if it registers itself again, the problem will start occurring.

This should prevent explorer from crashing due to the aiicon.dll

John