Solved Is Windows Explorer corrupt on my Vista Home Basic (32bit) system?

My Compaq Presario SR2163WM is doing some strange things.
1) If you try to delete a file, it sends it to the recycle bin, but then sits there with the "recycling" window open forever. At least for as long as I let it, which so far has been 2 hours. If you try to cancel or shut down the window, it goes to the "canceling" window and sits there forever. The only way to make it stop is to do a CTRL-ALT-DELETE, go to the Task Manager, and tell it to force shutdown of the process. At that point it shuts down Windows Explorer and restarts it. The file (or files) are deleted, but what is going on?
2) Does the same thing for renaming files. Endless loops unless you force Windows Explorer to close.
This is awkward and time consuming at best.
I did a search for this kind of problem, and the the result I got was to run SFC /SCANNOW to find corrupted or damaged files and then reload them from the original Vista disk. There is no original Vista disk. Computer came without one from Wal Mart. The scan is running as we type, but what can I do if it finds corrupted files?
BTW, I was going to do a System Recover, but I don't know the Administrator password. I never put one in when I got the system, but there seems to one in place. Now what?
Keith

When you mention System Recover, are you talking about restoring to a System restore point? If so, you would run that from Safe Mode.

Turns out that I needed to do a complete re-install of Vista. Not sure if something in Vista was bad or if I just had too many junk programs on the computer, but something was bogging it down and causing the weird problems (not being able to delete or rename files and not shutting down) and overheating (it was overheating because it was using too much CPU processing capability all the time). Downloaded the Vista files and re-installed using my OEM code and all is well once again. Hasn't run this quiet, cool, and fast in years. The re-install deleted all the programs that didn't come with Vista and frankly that's probably what solved the issues. I've been careful about what I put back on--limiting it to programs I absolutely need like Office. My desktop is much neater now too.
Keith

Last year I lost a hard drive. Before that, it would take me 4 minutes to boot the system. After I reinstalled Vista, the boot time is now around a minute. That's even after I reinstalled all the software that I used.

Glad you solved your problem.