Application call to windows explorer function broken after applying theme

From the MS website...

Are there any risks to using EMET?

The security mitigation technologies that EMET uses carry an application compatibility risk with them. Some applications rely on exactly the behavior that the mitigations block. It is important to thoroughly test EMET on all target computers by using test scenarios before you deploy EMET in a production environment. If you encounter a problem with a specific mitigation, you can individually enable and disable the specific mitigations. For more information, refer to the user's guide that is installed with EMET.

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2458544 

Some AV software from time to time generates 'false positives' with such products as Windowblinds.  It's frustrating but tends to be resolved by the next signature update [or two].

I haven't heard of anyone having a 'save' issue with Firefox due to WB.  Perhaps you have a corrupted install [or it's a by-product of the EMET use].

Someone from Support will likely catch up with this and shed some light...;)

right, im painfully aware of EMET's incompatibility with a very wide range of common applications, and that's why it's currently set to allow the application itself be the judge of whether or not to utilize the different paremeters, known in EMET as 'application opt-in.' I'd rather have it running with some functionality than none at all.

After taking a closer look,  Wbvista/vistaSrv aren't using the EMET functions, which figures. Maybe there are certain windows applications that <i>are</i> opted in which Wbvista/vistaSrv are trying to access, in turn causing the error im seeing. WBlinds is still able to apply the skins, they look just as I set them. They look great, and have a very wide range of affects that I really like... it's just these little quirks that are frustrating.

As I mentioned above, this 'saving' issue isn't isolated to Firefox, either.  This even includes WindowBlinds, when going to set per-application skins in the settings panel, I click 'add...' but the explorer window won't open.

All these functions work with the 'windows aero' and 'modified aero' visual styles running through Windowblinds but it seems that all of the custom ones, whether directly from the skins website or further customized by me, just won't play nice.

I'll try uninstalling/reinstalling WB, maybe something went wonky because I installed the paid application over the demo version. BTW, the demo version didn't report any of the trojan errors or DEP errors like the paid one... and for the record, I have NOT installed windowblinds from any other sources except for the official packages found here Stardock's website.

Going to uninstall WB, I get the error : Wise Uninstall | 'Could not open install.log file.'

but it exists in C:\Program Files (x86)\Stardock\Object Desktop\WindowBlinds 

and I'm running the UNWISE.exe as admin.

Uninstall Comodo. Get another like AVG or Avira.

Uninstall trial WB use CCleaner and clean registry. The trial and subscription should never be installed at the same time.

Reboot. Reinstall only the subscriber Windowblinds with firewall and antiviral off. Reboot.\

Unistall the Firefox you have including personal settings and get rid of EMET2. MS has updated long since for that day zero.

Install a fresh copy of Firefox. 

You can also try the Zapper program to uninstall WindowBlinds.

From M$oft:

"18 May 2011 12:27 PM Today we are pleased to announce a new version of the Enhanced Mitigation Experience Toolkit (EMET) with brand new features and mitigations."

They're clearly still developing it, so it would be apparent that it still has a purpose. It's a viable preemptive security solution if they can get software developers to comply with the standard. I wouldn't doubt if they are trying their best to figure out how to work out the kinks as to include it as a default function of future versions of the OS.

I'll turn off the functions temporarily to see if I can get one of the themes to stick.

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Comodo has served me well for years. The security profile in it is very developed. I'd consider changing my AV/FW if there was solid information showing that another was truly any better, but I'd rather not since I paid for Comodo.  I'll just temporarily turn off the realtime scanner.

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Firefox is not the problem. It works fine without windowblinds. I can't really just go resetting personal settings on it either, as it's a very heavily customized application as well.

--

I'm going to try using the 3rd party uninstallers, and reinstall just the subscriber version, and report back.

Anon, you definitely need to de-install WindowBlinds run a cleaner like CCleaner then reboot.  Finally, reinstall only your paid version of WindowBlinds.  Installing the paid version over the top of the Demo version always causes issues, hence the need to de-install and clean the registry.

Okay, so 3rd party uninstaller clients I have rely upon the proprietary uninstaller for at least part of the process. Zapper freezes when run normally, and force closes when run as admin.

If I were you, I'd run a Malwarebyte scan, and then run

chkdsk /f /r   from an elevated cmd prompt.

Sounds like you have multiple issues. 

Is Comodo Defense+ installed as part of the AV and active?

Agreed.

Use Regseeker, (oldie but goody) search the term Windowblinds, amke sure to check all boxes... it will find.. everything... right click, delete all.

done it 100 times... works perfectly.

Zapper leaves registry entries.

Yes, it would, but that won't happen until AV security firms start being held accountable for all the lost sales their false positives eventually cause.

Comodo is a PITA to deal with. As Winstep's developer, I've had lots of trouble with them. After a few complains Winstep eventually got contacted by their white list department. Their requirements to fix the problem? Every time a new version is released, the full setup binaries must first be uploaded into their FTP whitelist server.

Imagine if all different AV security firms had this requirement, I would be doing nothing else for a week before every new release. Furthermore, this doesn't even work properly as their signature updates are not always kept up-to-date with the files on the Comodo whitelist FTP server.

Contrast this with Eset's (NOD32) response a couple of years ago: I wrote them a bitter email on a Friday night, the very next day (barely a few hours later) I got a reply from their tech department and the problem was solved the very next signature update. Solved for good too: never had a false positive from Eset's AV engine on Winstep software again after that (they also invited me to become their beta tester, so guess which AV software I've been using since then?).

Similar thing happened with Kaspersky, pretty good response from their labs too - so far, only Comodo makes developers jump through hoops.

Before issuing a new release, I also got into the habit of first uploading the main executable to VirusTotal, which scans uploaded files with all known anti-virus engines, to see if any of them flags a false positive and take preemptive action if so. Alas, even this doesn't solve the problem - the file may pass with flying colors on that scan only to be flagged with a false positive on the next signature update of one of the AV engines. It's a mess.

I'm glad to hear that Jorge.  One more reason for me to like Eset.

I sympathize with your troubles, JcRabbit, code developing is a convoluted industry in a capitalist society. I'm definitely going to investigate another AV.

However,

the drive that I was working on with this issue is now borked to some degree after running Malwarebytes. It doesn't make any sense to me, maybe you guys can make sense of it.

It didn't find anything wrong, save a few settings I had set myself (force opening certain file types like .js with notepad)

I figured, why not, just reset the registry settings to windows defaults. It completes the process, asks to restart.

I restart, enter my system password, and windows tries to load normally, fails, and sends me to the system restore boot. tried multiple times to reboot to see if it was just a minor glitch, but same thing happens...

Now I'm fearing data loss. WTF happened? I'm not about to blame Winblinds, but I'm here and you're following my support log here, so... worth a shot, you guys seem pretty keen.

I'm thinking that's what went wrong.

When things like this happen the OS can quickly degrade and get worse.

Does Windows allow you to try and load from a pprior Restore Point?  Have you tried that?

I think there may be a non-destructive way to reload Win 7 but I'm not sure I know the details.  Wait until you have a firm understanding before procededing further with trying to fix your machine.

Roger that...I know the data is on there, and am frozen in fear of losing it at this point.

Windows won't allow me to try reloading from restore point, but does give me the option to load a system image... which I have, but it's a couple months old and would like to recover the data in between. I'm okay with just scraping the necessary data from the disk, reformatting, and flashing the old image, but I'm having complications doing that too. I've got a system encryption on it, and when I connect the disk to another computer, it takes the password, but then says there's an I/O error... maybe that's the problem?  I thought that only happens when the physical drive gets deformed... doesn't make sense because I've never dropped it or any other sort of physical mashups... It doesn't click when it spins up, and when placed in the original computer it still boots at least to the pre-boot password prompt, and the windows restore 'x:' drive partition is....

Ugh...

P.S. Reading your posts with the voice of Brian from Family guy makes this experience a little better. Thank you for your help.

No reformat reinstall: http://windowssecrets.com/top-story/win7s-no-reformat-nondestructive-reinstall/ 

This is a bit cruel to say after the fact, but that's why you should always have an *automated* backup system. In my case I use two external WD 2TB USB 3.0 drives and Acronis TrueImage.

Every Sunday a full image backup of all my internal hard drives is made to the first external hard disk... the following days of the week, it's a differential backup to save space.

On Sunday, before making the full backup, a batch file renames the full backup file that is about to be replaced to 'xxx-old' and deletes the differential backups. This way, I always have a fresh backup and also a full backup that is at least a week old (useful for redundancy and in case I need to retrieve a file I deleted in the mean time but only noticed a week later).

The second hard drive is used for monthly full backups and weekly differential backups, using the same batch file method I use in the first external hard drive to save old backups. This way, not only do I have redundant (older) backups in case one of the external hard drives fails, as I also have a backup that is at least one month old (again, useful for when I might need a file I modified or deleted up to a month earlier).

On top of this, I regularly manually backup critical data into a 32 GB flash pen I carry with me *at all times* (just in case some catastrophe - God forbids! - destroys my system and the external hard drives, or someone breaks into my house, taking with him my system *and* the backup drives).

Oh, and, err, once a week critical source files are also automatically backed up into a server in the US (I'm in Portugal) via the Internet.

Call me paranoid, if you want, but this setup has saved my bacon before.

Every day, between 9 and 9.30 am my 'work' files, emails, game-skinning files, even mp3s are backed up to a second HD....and in the case of the actual work files they in turn are backed to a third hd.  Every week a sys image is taken [a full one] to yet another drive... and as/when iget more than three or 4 I cull the oldest.   <------- all saved me too more than once...;)

I have mine set to do a full system image on the 15th of every month to an external...it's saved me before. Plus I use SyncBack to backup my storage drive to an external as well (nothing is stored on my OS drive).

Plus, if I know I'm going to be attempting something that might blow up in my face, I'll manually run the backups just in case.

I am aware of the need for backups, but now know just how necessary it is. Learning the hard way, story of my life... Once this whole thing is over the 500bg internal drive will be replaced by a much smaller SSD, and then placed in an enclosure for good. 

Thanks for all the help. Can anyone suggest a more direct forum for my new and much more serious problem that has little to do with stardock?

Oh lordie...that's how we all learn. Hind-sight is 20/20 and backups are definitely the rule.

sevenforums.com

tomshardware.com

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