Fences conflict with Windows Explorer

Hello,
Sorry to hear you are having issues. But, I don't remember anybody reporting in recently having similar issue as yours. First, please try purge and reinstall steps as mention here : [Link]. Just make sure to redownload the latest version from your account page. Reboot after the purge. Reinstall and reboot again after the installation. Retest and report back here.

Thank you,
Basj,
Stardock Community Assistant.

I have already done that multiple times with no change in behavior.

Great, glad to know that. Next please try testing on Windows Sandbox: https://forums.stardock.com/486084/fences-support-faq#sandbox

Thank you,

Basj,
Stardock Community Assistant

I can't get it to act up in the Windows Sandbox.

If it working in Windows Sandbox, that show that your current system is having conflicting issue with Fences. Please try Cleanboot as mentioned here: https://forums.stardock.com/486084/fences-support-faq#cleanboot. Please follow the guide carefully, there are risk, if not done properly.

Thank you,

Basj,
Stardock Community Assistant

I had my IT rep help me with this Cleanboot process. We currently have all services and programs other than Windows services disabled, including anti-virus, monitoring, etc. I am still having the same Windows Explorer high activity when I do any kind of file work, so it seems we have not gotten to the root of the problem yet. Do you have any more ideas for us to try?

Just to confirm, the cleanboot was done with a new admin account, yes? If yes, next, please try this:

1. Save a new layout snapshot. This saved snapshot will be use when you revert back to your current layout.
2. Do "Perform automatic layout". Your Fences will be recreated into 3 main Fences. All portal Fences will be removed.
3. Check if you still have the same issue.

Report back. You can restore that saved layout to get back to your original layout.

Thank you,

Basj,
Stardock Community Assistant

I am using a domain profile. My IT person created a new administrator domain profile for me, but the problematic behavior continues. What should I try next?

I have forwarded your problem/question to Stardock Support Team for their assistance. Please keep an eye on this thread for any updates. We appreciate your feedback and patience.

Basj,
Stardock Community Assistant

What Anvi-virus software are you using?  Could it be Webroot \ Endpoint?

If so, its unlikely anyone will allow you to disable it but if so, please try it. 

Also, have you ever had Fences 5 installed prior and it was fine, but something changed, and now it does not?  

Did you run Fences 4 prior and it was fine?

Are you using a 'Roaming' profile on your network?

Sean Drohan
Stardock Product Lifecycle Manager

The antivirus I am using is Sophos. Disabling it and uninstalling it did not make any difference.

I have had trouble ever since Fences 5 was installed but not with Fences 4 that I remember.

I do use roaming profiles on my network, yes.

Hope that helps.

Then logic dictates that something in your environment (app, setting, corp policy) is causing an issue. If it was known what it was, we may be able to work around it but until it is, we are at a loss ourselves. 

This is a complete shot in the dark but disable the Fences hotkey Windows Task Scheduler job, reboot, and see if you can reproduce it.

Sean Drohan
Stardock Product Lifecycle Manager

Does this logfile from Process Monitor shed any light on what may be happening?

Excessive! It does and it doesn't. So, we probably shouldn't be needing to do that ForceFoundSlideshowResult lookup as much and can cache the result. However, these are just simple Windows registry (database) lookups which are highly cached and your system performs tens of thousands of these per second, so, the 20-50 shown here wouldn't make much a dent in anything. But I love where your head is at!

Have added code to a subsequent release to increasing caching on that lookup, but, I don't imagine that would have any impact unfortunately.

One step might be to uncheck "Enable Fences" from the bottom of the welcome screen and see if it reproduces, and then restart explorer (with Enable Fences unchecked already) and see if it reproduces. If unchecked when explorer starts loading, it don't load up at all. But might give other hints.

Disabling the Hotkey support is also another decent shot in the dark, but, unlikely to resolve. My best guess would be it has something to do with SHChangeNotifyRegister, but it does not get in the way of file copies etc it's just a notification, so at this time not seeing where it could be involved. This might be something we could test.

We'll be releasing a v5.81 beta next week, and it will have a new regkey option

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Stardock\Fences\Settings
UseSHChangeNotifyInterrupts = (DWORD) 0

There will be output to dbgview.exe "SHChangeNotifyRegister not using SHCNRF_InterruptLevel" to confirm the option. This output can be enabled by setting

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Stardock
Debug = (String) "1" (without quotes)

We can see if that helps the situation. You'll need to restart explorer.exe (and ideally log out and back on) for this setting to have effect. Realistically, it will be difficult to get Fences to delay startup such that you can see that msg in dbgview.exe! But you can disable all of it's startup tasks (both in Task Scheduler + in Task Manager's Startup Items area) and then manually start up by opening up Fences.exe and/or shift right clicking, or, restarting explorer after you get dbgview.exe open.

If this ends up making an impact, we can investigate more, though again while these messages are processes on the message loop, the system has much bigger problems going on if SHChangeNotifyRegister with SHCNRF_InterruptLevel is causing significant delays on a single file.

Another thing I would like to know is if you reset Fences to a default layout:

Does it reproduce?

Second, and while still in this default layout, create a 'Temp' folder on the desktop. If you take all the non-Windows icons \ documents (so no Recycle bin and such) on your desktop and 'move' them to this temp folder, does it reproduce?

If it does not reproduce, 'move' that 'temp' folder to \Documents in Windows explorer.  Going back to the desktop, create a Fences 'folder portal' to it:

Does it reproduce?

If not, we are in better shape...  You can likely see where I am going here, something on the desktop might be making Fences go nuts.

If you want to proceed like this (all my Fences on one of my PCs are Folder Portals only), go to the 'temp' folder and rename it 'DesktopFences'.  In it, create new folders that would be the same as any Fence name you had, 'Programs', 'Games', etc.  Start moving icons and documents from the root 'DesktopFences' folder to the new folders you created - Program ones in 'Programs', etc. 

Then go back to the desktop and create new individual Folder Portals for them. 

Let us know.

Sean Drohan
Stardock Product Lifecycle Manager

OK, I want to give you an update on where we are at this point.

First, I was wrong when I said we use roaming profiles. What we are using is Folder Redirection, meaning all data for all workstations including desktop icons, MyDocuments files, etc. is actually stored on our server.

We have tried the suggestion about moving the desktop files and icons to a Temp folder in MyDocuments and then creating folder portals to these folders. Performance definitely improved when we removed the desktop files, but adding a Folder Portal started to degrade performance again. At this point I have 2 of the default Fences on my desktop only--Programs and Folders. There are 2 dozen or less icons in each of these fences. I still experienced slowness in browsing around in File Explorer, even with this minimal usage of Fences, so it seems we are still not finding the correct root of the problem yet.

I would have to say that it is my impression that my problems started with the installation of Fences 5. Is there anything significantly different between versions 4 and 5 that could be causing my issue?

Ugh, ok. Ugh = not easily tested here. 

There are substantial differences, too many to name, so it can be daunting to find that needle in the haystack.

When you were creating Folder portals to the unique folder in the temp root, was there one specifically that you could see caused a performance hit?  If you have already created folder portals to each unique folder, is there one that you remove that has it dramatically improve?

Again, you can likely see where I am going here; trying to find an icon or doc that is causing an issue.

Another option to try is seeing if you can create folder portals to the absolute network location, bypassing folder redirection altogether.  That is something your IT people might frown upon (if even possible, I am a bit out of my depth there). 

In the end, folder redirection, while something we need to account for (if it is an issue), its not something we can readily test here.

Sean Drohan
Stardock Product Lifecycle Manager

Hi sheldonemartin, we're still adding some features and fixes to the beta so it's been delayed a touch, but I'm still thinking this will be our next diagnostic step. I don't *anticipate* it will find the cause? But it's certainly the most plausible I can think of so far.

Let me know if the instructions make sense to try out.