This has been happening to me recently as well. It seems related to this issue:
http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=2135129&start=0&tstart=0
I get the same message
*The application Finder.app can't be opened.*
-10810
When I try to reopen the finder after force-quitting it. I have a couple of NTFS-3G volumes as well as SMB shares set up which I think may be related. I do not have anything like MacFUSE installed, it's just straight Snow Leopard finder.
When the finder crashes, a lot of other applications come crashing down after it. What's strange is some applications can be started, while others cannot. For instance the last time it happened (just before hard-restarting and posting this) I could launch Address Book, but not System Preferences; the program would start in the dock (stops bouncing and illuminated light), but the window never comes up and the menu bar doesn't change when clicking it. Applications that lock up after the Finder stops responding start using 80%+ cpu according to System Monitor.
I have a feeling this is something related to non-HFS+ drives and disk access. I'm testing out adding the NTFS drives to the Spotlight privacy setting to see if that helps. Other things I will try include removing afp/smb shares from the NTFS drives. I'll report back on the success/failure if I can figure something out. Sometimes the problem happens twice in the same day, sometimes it doesn't happen for 3 days. I've lost work due to this so I'm very interested in a solution.
*More Details*:
Snow Leopard 10.6.2
Drives:
* 640GB "Macintosh HD" - HFS+ Journaled (Snow Leopard drive)
* 750GB "Media 2" - HFS+ Journaled (formatted from Snow Leopard)
* 1000GB "Media" - NTFS (Formatted from Windows 7)
* 640GB
- 105MB "System Reserved" - NTFS (Formatted from Windows 7 Install)
- 640GB "Windows 7" - NTFS (Windows 7 Drive, formatted from Windows 7 Install)
File Sharing: On - (AFP and SMB)
Shares:
* 4 folders from "Media" (/Volumes/Media/)
* 1 Folder from "Media 2" (/Volumes/Media 2/)
* My Public folder on "Macintosh HD" (/Users/jrennell/Public/)
Message was edited by: jrennell