Hi benthybsch , I am not too sure that I can help , but can throw up a few suggestions for you though.

I am an xp user , and nero 7 customer.... so excuse any uninformed questions I may ask...

firstly a most generic question , regarding 8.1.1.0 , is this an update ?, that is how the version number appears,  if yes and / or , you have updated from a previous nero  version was the nero clean tool used ?  are you certain that you have a clean install ? this is the first most common cause of strange side effects from nero...

by using the "community search" bar  , with the words 

" help new to nero 8 " 

you should find a blog by   Nikkikins   there are more instructions on that blog  the blog starts off  " hi Ken or any one else that can help"  or something close to that . that blog contains good info on clean installation.

next by "start up of control panel" are you referring to windows control panel ?,  ati control panel ? or a nero 8 app ?

also by windows explorer failure , do you mean an error message or a system lock up ?

in the event of an error message you could access the system event viewer to find the error log , that may contain useful information to aid you in finding the problem...  it is fairly easy to double click an error message there and access error code information from Microsoft wiki , it usually includes suggested course of action .

if I may suggest , it may be helpful to more advanced users  here if you where to post a bit more description of your problem , your system specs , and an error code if you have one.

hope this is at least a little helpful to you.

Art