Medium bug in Fences 2.0

closing the Windows shell

from Stardock Forums

I don't think Fences 1.x had this one.

The problem is this:
1) Close the Windows 7 shell - click Start, press and hold Ctrl+Shift, then right-click any empty area on the Start menu and choose "Exit Explorer".
2) Now run the shell again - Task Manager (which you can run via Ctrl+Shift-Escape), Run, explorer.exe.
RESULT: Fences won't run again. And it does not appear in the desktop right-click menu. Trying to start it via the Control Panel fails.
EXPECTED: Fences should auto-start along with the restart of the Windows 7 shell. AND/OR, at least be able to run it manually via the Control Panel ---> "Enable Fences".
This is a fairly big bug, not sure how you missed it.

Running Windows 7 64-bit, Ultimate, SP1 with all updates installed.
Please advise if this is a known issue, and suggest a workaround. If not, please tell me when this can be fixed?

fences
12,658 views 13 replies
Reply #1 from WinCustomize Forums Top

Is there a particular reason why you are closing down explorer?  This seems like an extreme edge case to me rather than a major bug.

Reply #2 from Stardock Forums Top

Quoting Neil, reply 1
Is there a particular reason why you are closing down explorer?  This seems like an extreme edge case to me rather than a major bug.
End of Neil's quote

Yes, some icons in the Windows 7 Notification area are sometimes missing, thus the need to do this. When you close down and restart the Windows shell, those icons come back. Anyway, Fences 1.x worked fine with this.
Also, even if it can't autostart, it should be able to start if I go to Control Panel, then try to "Enable Fences" there. But it won't do that either.
I also submitted a support ticket on this.

EDIT: Another reason, and the reason I did this time - my Eudora 7.x email client got stuck, I was unable to open any emails by double-clicking them. Eudora uses IE as a rendering engine to render all emails.
So, I had to restart the Windows shell (remember, IE is closely tied with the Windows shell), then Eudora got un-stuck.

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Reply #3 from Stardock Forums Top

A temporary workaround I used - Log Off from Windows 7, then log back on.
Works about the same way as a restart, but is faster. 

Reply #4 from WinCustomize Forums Top

Killing and restarting a shell, any shell isn't for the faint hearted.  It is far wiser [for the Explorer.exe shell] to log off and/or reboot to wake it up if it's having 'issues'.

Killing the shell will break anything particularly dependent on it - not everything will [or is even designed to] recover itself in tune with a shell revival...;)

Reply #5 from Stardock Forums Top

Jafo, I am NOT force-killing the shell, I am using the official/graceful way to exit!!
In fact, with Windows 7 you even get the Windows startup tune/music when you run the shell again. :)
Most of my other apps (I have many) handle this fine - just 1-2 apps do not.

Reply #6 from WinCustomize Forums Top

I think you should take a look at this.

Resolve the problem of the icons and you won't have to restart explorer thus fixing fences also.

 

Just on a side note, I have restarted explorer several times and Fences still works for me. The only problem I have with Fences is if I drag files to the portal, the portals flash really fast and if I let go of the mouse button while moving a file/folder over the portal nothing happens with the file itself. 

Reply #7 from Stardock Forums Top

Quoting roflmfaoo, reply 7
I think you should take a look at this.

Resolve the problem of the icons and you won't have to restart explorer thus fixing fences also.

 

Just on a side note, I have restarted explorer several times and Fences still works for me. The only problem I have with Fences is if I drag files to the portal, the portals flash really fast and if I let go of the mouse button while moving a file/folder over the portal nothing happens with the file itself. 
End of roflmfaoo's quote

No, this will NOT help. The icons I have problems with are NOT the built-in icons, but different ones.

 

EDIT: OK, for some reason Fences works now, even when closing the shell. Weird..

Reply #8 from WinCustomize Forums Top

It's not Fences that's at fault here. If other software is malfunctioning on your computer I would recommend scanning the integrity of windows files via command prompt > "sfc /scannow"

Reply #9 from Stardock Forums Top

Quoting roflmfaoo, reply 9
It's not Fences that's at fault here. If other software is malfunctioning on your computer I would recommend scanning the integrity of windows files via command prompt > "sfc /scannow"
End of roflmfaoo's quote

Missing icons is NOT a software malfunction, it is a Windows OS malfunction.
Anyway, yes, the bug report probably should be changed to "Sometimes Fences won't start on restarting the Windows shell".

Reply #10 from WinCustomize Forums Top

Quoting nakibest, reply 9

Missing icons is NOT a software malfunction, it is a Windows OS malfunction.
End of nakibest's quote

Missing icons in the notification area is a software malfunction, starting with Windows XP (I think) notifications are sent if the shell is restarting so applications are able (and have to for the icons to display) to refresh their handles and stuff. 

Reply #11 from Stardock Forums Top

Quoting SvSchfer, reply 11

Quoting nakibest, reply 9
Missing icons is NOT a software malfunction, it is a Windows OS malfunction.

Missing icons in the notification area is a software malfunction, starting with Windows XP (I think) notifications are sent if the shell is restarting so applications are able (and have to for the icons to display) to refresh their handles and stuff. 
End of SvSchfer's quote

No, it is a Windows OS malfunction. It seems to be happening when you have a lot of startup items. This is since WinXP, Windows 7 has it too, not sure about 8.
Minimizing those to under 10 or even 5 seems to help. But not all users can do this. And yes, it does not happen 100% reliably, for some users it is fine.
Also, it is different apps each time - sometimes one app is missing, sometimes another. 

EDIT: You misunderstood. The problem with missing icons is when you power on the PC. When you restart the shell, ALL ICONS appear/come back, yes. That part is correct - the missing icons problem is on a full power down/restart ONLY.

Reply #12 from WinCustomize Forums Top

You don't need emphasis on your yes/no answers nakibest, I can read clearly. What you failed to specify was whether the icons that don't appear were the typical windows icons i.e: battery, volume, wireless/lan activity etc.. or whether they were other software icons although I did read that you mentioned Eudora (which again is completely unassociated with windows code) so therefore in this diagnosis the problem would lie within corrupt installation files or corrupt OS files, hence my suggestion of sfc /scannow. Now you say it's a Windows OS malfunction, if you tried what I suggested you might find that it will resolve the problem. On a side note, why on earth would you need more than 10 applications to load at start up?

Reply #13 from WinCustomize Forums Top

While this may not address your problem, I will relate my experiences from my Vista/early Win 7 days. Back then I had more than a few explorer crashes and also use one SD program that restarts explorer in the course of doing its job. (IP) I had 3 programs that would fail to show icons when that happened and they were always the same ones, namely Core Temp, Yahoo Messenger and EVGA Precision. I had to close the apps via TM and restart them to get the icons back. Later updates (from MS or the programs themselves) seem to have sorted this out. Like I said, not much help, just an fyi.

Are the missing icons always the same ones, and are the programs the most recent versions. Are they identified as being full compatible with Win7 64 bit? If the first is true and the second, false, have you tried running these programs in Compatibility Mode?