Fences 3 bugs - Corrupted desktop

from Stardock Forums

I've come across a bug that has completely corrupted my desktop.  

 

Only one of my Fences appears anymore.  Double-clicking the background will not make the others appear.  If I uninstall and reinstall, they appear momentarily and disappear again.  The Icons are still there when I looked in File Explorer.

I think this all stems from another bug which has been around since Fences 2. I keep all my icons and my taskbar on my secondary screen. Whenever I update my NVidia drivers, all the fences shift from the secondary screen to the primary screen.  I end up having to move them back one at a time.  It's a really annoying bug, but I've learned to live with it (though I do tend to delay installing new drivers until I absolutely have to or when I have a spare half hour to deal with the hassle).

The last two times I've done this, I'd move some fences and all of a sudden only the one I was in hte process of moving would stay on the screen.  All the others would disappear.  Nothing I could do would get them back.  Now, instead of moving the feces, it appears each time I install the new video driver, I need to completely reconstruct the fences setup.  Nope.  Not good enough Stardock.

I've uninstalled in the hope that would fix the bug, but clearly there are still some residual settings that persist after uninstalling.

 

I like Fences.  Normally it behaves itself.  But this hassle whenever I update my video drivers is becoming a bloody pain.

fences
6,918 views 3 replies
Reply #1 from Stardock Forums Top

Driver updates for video can wreck havoc because they enable and disable monitors at will

A few things to try/look at:

Reply #2 from Stardock Forums Top

Do snapshots of the fences in use not work when you restore that snapshot?

For handling desktop icons cleanly, I use DesktopOK, a free tool that seems to work well even with Windows 10.  http://www.softwareok.com/?Download=DesktopOK

No idea why your icons are disappearing, unless they're part of a corrupted fence that is staying invisible.  If uninstalling/reinstalling isn't helping, you could try a test by creating a new user in Windows, logging into that account and testing some new icons/fences to see if it works there.  If so you know there's a problem with your user data.

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Reply #3 from Stardock Forums Top

Quoting ZubaZ, reply 1

Driver updates for video can wreck havoc because they enable and disable monitors at will

A few things to try/look at:

    • Disable Fences before you update via the config (Home)
    • Reload a snapshot after the update (Layout & snapping)
End of ZubaZ's quote

 

Of course!  Snapshots.  I hadn't considered using those.  I've seen the functionality, but I've only thought of it as something to revert lots of changes made.  Thanks for the tip.