adamcsj adamcsj

Explorer crashes, Fences fails to start

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Explorer crashes, Fences fails to start

from Stardock Forums

I installed Fences 3.09 on a new Windows 10 laptop last week.  It worked fine for a few days, but now it fails to start.  I see this message:

 

"Fences has detected that Explorer was not closed properly.  As a precaution, Fences has been temporarily disabled. To re-enable Fences, right click your desktop and choose Enable Fences."

 

I tried uninstalling/reinstalling.  I tried purging and re-installing, as per recommendations in other threads.  I also tried a clean boot.  No success.

 

I also tried a few older versions of Fences.  2.12 works (but for some reason I can't activate it), while 2.13 shows the same problem as 3.09.

 

Any suggestions?  I can't think of anything that might be interfering with it.  It's a work laptop, but I have more or less full control over it.  No WebSense or anything like that installed, at least that I am aware of...

fences
95,360 views 34 replies
Reply #26 from Stardock Forums Top

In my case, it was a fresh Windows 10 Pro install.

 

- No WebSense or other corporate software installed

- No antivirus

- Uninstalled/reinstalled Fences at least 10 times

- Tried clean boot and other suggestions..

- Reinstalled Windows as a last resort (retaining user account and files)

 

After all that, it still didn’t work.  Then I created a new Windows account in Control Panel and it worked.  Bizarrely, it then worked on the old account.

Reply #27 from Stardock Forums Top

Quoting adamcsj, reply 26

After all that, it still didn’t work.  Then I created a new Windows account in Control Panel and it worked.  Bizarrely, it then worked on the old account.
End of adamcsj's quote

The creation of a new Admin account is (awesome) a good test and why it's part of the clean boot process.  Why it may do is re-lay down some system files for all accounts and why it worked the way it did for you.  What also may have worked is a sfc scan.

Sean Drohan
Stardock Support Manager

Object Desktop - Get all of our enhancement utilities in one suite
Reply #29 from Stardock Forums Top

FYI: After awhile I tried again.  I've probably had a number of Windows updates since the last time I tried.  Also created a local Windows admin account (but didn't log into it), to see if that helped.  I don't have Forcepoint.  It works great now.  Not sure if because of the updates or because of the new account.  I've since deleted the new account and still works good.

Reply #30 from Stardock Forums Top

Quoting mafujosh, reply 29

FYI: After awhile I tried again.  I've probably had a number of Windows updates since the last time I tried.  Also created a local Windows admin account (but didn't log into it), to see if that helped.  I don't have Forcepoint.  It works great now.  Not sure if because of the updates or because of the new account.  I've since deleted the new account and still works good.
End of mafujosh's quote

Excellent news, thanks for the update.

----------------
Sean Drohan
Stardock Customer Service Manager

Reply #31 from Stardock Forums Top

I have the same problem after I used autoruns.exe to get rid of right click context menu "show this folder on the desktop"

Reply #32 from Stardock Forums Top

Hello,

Sorry to hear you are having trouble.

Quoting Steffenvy, reply 31

I have the same problem after I used autoruns.exe to get rid of right click context menu "show this folder on the desktop"
End of Steffenvy's quote

Sean Drohan
Stardock Support Manager

Reply #33 from Stardock Forums Top
  • If you undo what you did, does it then work (Fences runs in the Windows Explorer process)?

Not after undoing the Fences related ones. it might have worked for slightly longer before restarting explorer, but it didn't fix it. After enabling ALL of the checkmarks (I had gotten rid of many other right click context menu junk), it works for a little longer now before restarting explorer. But these times before it restarts explorer is not vastly different before or after my changes, and it seems to be randomized according to some sort of event or something, so I don't think what I did was so useful. I DID also use regedit and I think maybe also winaero tweaker to get rid of other right click context menu items, but with regedit I don't think I can easily find my way back to undoing what I did (I didn't destroy the regedit entries, but I "disabled" a lot of different ones scattered all over the place in regedit to clean up the pesky right click context menu).

 

Its random nature just makes me think it's doing some sort of background process like just scouring the files or loading something and it's just upset that there are some missing right click context menu options or something. Or maybe it's prompting windows to do something and windows gets upset.

The delay until crash is what i'm really curious about.

 

 

  • Is this in a corp environment - perhaps one where WebSense / Forcepoint is being used?

no

  • Did you do the purge and re-install?

Yes, it worked for a little longer so I was fooled into believing it was fixed, but after restoring my layout it didn't last long until it would restart explorer.

  • Did you try a clean boot?

no

  • Are you running any multi-monitor software (Ultra-mon, Actual Multiple Monitors, etc)?

no

  • Are you using Windows Slideshow

no

Reply #34 from Stardock Forums Top

Quoting Steffenvy, reply 35

Did you try a clean boot?
no
End of Steffenvy's quote

Please do as it will put Fences on a stage with just Windows Services running.

Sean Drohan
Stardock Support Manager