I cannot believe I am typing this.

from Stardock Forums

I cannot believe I have to type this.

I absolutely cannot use Icon Packager anymore.

Stardock has made some great programs - but Icon Packager renders my computer absolutely unusable.

It all started with Google's update software. It stopped working at one time, and had stopped working for several days. I absolutely could not figure it out. It was driving me crazy - there seemed to be mothing wrong with anything, but no matter what I did, no matter what caches I cleared, what I deleted, what temp files I got rid of, no matter how absolutely clean my install was, I could not install any of Google's software.

So - I started prying at it via Sysinternals tools. Which was also beginning to be fruitless. It seemed like the installer was eternally waiting on something that never finished. Then I stumbled across some sort of "iprepair.dll" file in the stack - which turned out to be part of Icon Packager.

So - I uninstalled Icon Packager - and Chrome started working.

Just for kicks, I also tried reinstalling my Bluetooth drivers, which had also seemed to have stopped working a long time ago, which I also had given up on due to not having any clue what was wrong.

. . . and now they work perfectly. As if nothing was wrong.

Now I can't confirm that Icon Packager broke my Bluetooth - BUT icons are pretty universal, and apparently Icon Package has its hooks in Windows pretty deep. I wouldn't be surprised.

So, from this point on - I simply can't use Icon packager anymore. Normally, Stardock's software is top quality, and even things like WindowsBlinds are pretty good and play nice with everything else. But this seems to be the exception.

It has just gotten to the point where it interferes with every day tasks. so I just can't use it.

I'm hoping that it's just this computer, and that this is an isolated incident - but the frustration I've had to go through to find the root of this problem is unbelievable. Normally, I'm very good at troubleshooting, and as a Computer Science major and power user, I tend to know how to fix almost anything. But wow, finding the source of this issue was one of the most difficult cases I've faced.

In any case, I'm still a big fan of Stardock. Love WindowsBlinds, love the games :). It just seems that this one program has more issues than other Stardock products.

iconpackager
12,040 views 8 replies
Reply #1 from WinCustomize Forums Top

what OS

what version of IPackager?

Reply #2 from Stardock Forums Top

Windows XP, 32 bit on an Acer Aspire One. And I have no idea the version - Impulse showed both 4 and 5 installed. I didn't write down the exact version number, I just uninstalled.

Object Desktop - Get all of our enhancement utilities in one suite
Reply #3 from WinCustomize Forums Top

Acer have problems with their empowering technology interfering with ObjectDock, Panda and Dreamweaver so maybe it messes up with IP too, Some info about that here.

Reply #4 from Stardock Forums Top

Humm, I disabled their recovery stuff, but there's an "int15.sys" that is part of something to do with that, which I haven't disabled.

Don't wanna touch it, as I have no idea what it does.

Yet another reason for me to switch to Windows 7 . . .

 

Reply #5 from WinCustomize Forums Top

CobraA1 I would say that indeed something on your computer was not playing well with other programs/software.  It could have been just a bad download of IP.  When you were uninstalling programs did you run a clean up program like CCleaner to make sure there were no loose ends and then reboot the system?

i could tell you that I have two off the shelf Gateways, on old one running XP home 32 bit and a new one running Vista Home Premium 64 bit and neither one has a problem with running IP, but that doesn't help you with your problem.  I don't run anything Google but I don't think I have read about other's having the problem that you do. 

As Ausvet posted some folks have had problem with Acer and it's software interfering with other software.

Have you sent an email to support to see if they have an answer?

 

Reply #6 from Stardock Forums Top

CobraA1 I would say that indeed something on your computer was not playing well with other programs/software.
End of quote

Indeed. It appears either a driver or the software themselves weren't playing well with whatever IP was doing.

When you were uninstalling programs did you run a clean up program like CCleaner to make sure there were no loose ends and then reboot the system?
End of quote

Not a big fan of registry cleaning software. I've been burned before when they remove stuff that was still being used. I did try rebooting the system, to no avail.

Have you sent an email to support to see if they have an answer?
End of quote

No. Being as I did manage to find the source of the issue, and that actually *fixing* the issue for good would likely involve code changes and possibly convincing Acer to make code changes and release an update - I doubt I can do much more than to install Windows 7 when I can afford it.

Once IP was unintalled, the issue was resolved, so I don't need to be bothering anybody about it.

The only problem I have now is that some icons "reverted" to another icon set instead of Microsoft Office's icons :(.

Reply #7 from WinCustomize Forums Top

I will say that of all the components of Object Desktop, the one that has absolutely trashed my system most is Icon Packager. So many times that I will not install it on my production systems.

Now, in all fairness to SD, I've not tried it for quite some time on x64. I'll have to test in in a VM, but it makes me quite nervous to consider moving on from there...

Reply #8 from WinCustomize Forums Top

back around v3 IP was causing issues like white screen for add/remove restore etc

the workaround at the time was to unregister iprepair.dll

 

 

Start / Run /

regsvr32.exe /u "c:\program files\stardock\object desktop\iconpackager\iprepair.dll"