Blank Screen on Boot/Startup

Microsoft Windows 10 home Processor Intel(R) Core(TM) i5-3330 CPU @ 3.00GHz, 3001 Mhz, 4 Core(s), 4 Logical Processor(s)

8 gb ram. BaseBoard ASUSTeK COMPUTER INC. Windows V20H2

 I abandoned FENCES reluctantly some years back - though I really liked it - but it seemed to slow my boot time.   Anyhow - reinstalled latest version and really pleased to find I could flip between desktops using Pages - a great feature as I have three distinct areas of life I wanted to tidy up.

When I boot up, there is nothing on screen except my wallpaper.  So no folders, no shortcuts and no fences either. Fortunately, the fences program icon is there on my taskbar.  When I click that there's a delay - then my icons and folders and fences appear eventually. Although I often also get an error message from Fences saying it couldn't start (after it has). Sometimes, but not always, I get a windows box notification asking me what program do I want to use to open a file. 

• It doesn't start blank-then reveal on double click.  No fences settings seem to solve the problem.
• Tried purging and reinstalling from scratch x 2.  No change.
• Checked that fences was in the start-up procedure. yep. 2 enabled files.
• Right clicked bottom right action centre - show icons - no change. 
• Very disappointed I can't get this to work.  Will an earlier version do the trick? I read that you don't like to offer earlier versions, but from the correspondence on new version-feedback, I'm not yet confident there is a solution and I'll just have to uninstall.

harry