Hello,

Sorry to hear you are having issues. We need more information. Windows versions, Fences versions, and more details on your fences/ folder portal layout, dual monitors or more monitors? etc etc.

Thanks

Basj,

Stardock Community Assistant.

Few more questions.

1) Will the problem occurs with only one screen attached? (Disable all other 3)

2) Will the problem occurs with all the folder portals to those network drive location deleted? Note: You can take/save a layout snapshot to restore it later.

Thank you,

Basj,

Stardock Community Assistant

Hello,

I have forwarded your report to the Stardock support team for their review and recommendations.

Please keep an eye on this thread for any updates.

We really do appreciate your feedback, thanks.

AzDude
Stardock Community Assistant

Just to reduce the "rarity" of this issue, I also have this problem (exactly as the OP reported).

• Windows 10 Enterprise
• Fences 3.09.11
• 3 icon fences, 76 icons total
• 17 folder icons (no network mappings)
• 2 screens (laptop and 1 external)
• Using Intel CPU's graphics (HD Graphics 520)

There is a slight difference in my experience, however:

• Every time I use the "show desktop" button on the taskbar (or Win+D) or Win+Left Arrow/Win+Right Arrow (to snap Explorer window to side of screen) Fences hangs/restarts Explorer.
• Dragging an Explorer window to the side of the screen to snap/dock it also causes the issue.
• Win+Up Arrow/Win+Down Arrow, dragging window to top of screen to maximise, & shaking window to maximise/minimise everything does NOT cause the issue.

Hopefully that will be of some assistance tracking down the issue.

and

If memory serves, this is also common to the reports - being in a corp environment.

Are either of you using 'Websense' in your environment - if so, you should have a service running for it.  If you are not admins, please ask your IT people.  They wont let you shut that off but it will go a long way to confirming it as a culprit (just does not like how Fences runs in the WinExplorer process).

We are not convinced it is Fences itself but an interaction with an app, setting, policy, etc.  That is why a clean boot is so important for us to help diagnose the issue.  With near certainty, under a clean boot, Feces would likely work for each of you.  Then would be the personal process of the process of elimination to figure out what app, setting, etc - when re-enabled - is causing the conflict.

Forcepoint here as well.

So where does this leave us? 

Is it not strange that the shaking a window to minimise all others doesn't cause the problem?

Is there an option to tweak the way fences works to allow better interoperability with such programs, possibly behind an advanced setting if it had other impact/disables some features that may not be used?

As another point of reference, I tried the same installation on my home machine (Windows 10 Pro, no Forcepoint) and Fences works without issue. So it seems that Forcepoint may be objecting to something Fences is attempting to do.

Ok so the root problem has been identified and it's a known issue it seems.

Has Stardock reached out to Forcepoint for their help with this issue? If Forcepoint was incorrectly flagging Fences as malware I would expect that Stardock would quickly be in contact with them to resolve the issue.

I have this issue too. But apparently removing the network shared folder portal fixes this. It seems to happen when Fences can't find the networked share folder because that machine is off/disconnected. Clicking/right clicking the desktop randomly crashes explorer.

I do not have either of those installed. Also, using latest version of fences and fully up to date Win10. No dual monitors either.

Thanks for the suggestion. Although, this won't work for my case. The network folder doesn't have static files to create shortcuts from. I copy files out of that folder as they arrive. The folder portal gave me a somewhat live view of that folder. It works great when the machine is up and running but if its off, crash city! Not a big deal though. I can just remove the portal whenever the machine is down, only takes a second to re-create it.

I have update on my Fences crashing. The crashing hasn't happened in a few days now even when the networked computer is turned off. What I changed was instead of creating the folder portal directly from the networked machine, I created a mapped network drive first for that folder, then created the folder portal from the mapped network drive. At least everything seems stable now.