Have installed Fences on Windows 8.
Tried it on a laptop I tried Windows 8 out on a week or so ago, and now have put it on a Windows 8 Pro (x64) install...
On laptop Fences behaved fine. Well, it behaves fine on the Windows 8 Pro on my main computer BUT it takes about 15 seconds to load after windows finishes loading. I have no desktop Icons until Fences finally loads (or perhaps loads straight away but nothing shows for 15 seconds or so). The machine boots in about 5 seconds or so, so its really annoying that Fences takes all this time to load before my PC is all ready to use.
Any suggestions??
I only bought it a couple of weeks ago, has there been a new version that solves any of this, is it a common problem??
As has been noted, the idea that Windows 8 boots quickly is an illusion. Once the Start screen appears there is still much going on. You can see this if you watch your mouse cursor or your hard drive activity. I have found that I sometimes get problems (explorer restarting or hanging, etc.) if I try to run something before Windows is actually fully loaded (even before I installed Fences).
What I have found with regard to the Fences problem in this item that has worked for me has been to use task manager and disable Fences from the Startup tab. Now Windows starts fairly quickly (although there is still lots of activity). When I go to desktop my icons are all displayed right on the desktop. Right clicking on the desktop starts up Fences with all the groupings (although sometimes a right click makes all the icons disappear, with a reappearance in proper groups with a double left click).
A curious thing that I have found on both my laptop and my desktop is that every time I have installed Fences it puts two identical entries into the Startup tab on Task Manger. I speculate that this double entry might have something to do with the start up problems when I enable Fences in Startup. This is how I hit on the work around of disabling Fences in the Startup tab.
After over a month, I received a response from Stardock that my ticket on this issue has been escalated to the developer. Let's hope they get it sorted out.
Just thought I'd add my voice to this problem. Love Fences, it's an indispensable part of my windows experience.
I get a delay of 15-20 seconds for my Win8 desktop to become operational with Fences v2.01 installed.
It's running on an ASUS Zenbook UX31A, SSD 128gb, 4gb ram, Win 8 (x64)
This is a shame due to how fast this machine otherwise boots. The delay I receive after the logon screen is in the order of 15-20 seconds. Without Fences, that delay is about 1 second.
On my desktop system with Win7 (x86), the moment the desktop is available, Fences is ready as well.
I've tried many things to eliminate other startup items that are not necessary, but it has no effect on this issue. It seems that Fences will somehow need to become a service in order to progress up the queue of startup items.
I just installed the Fences 2.1 beta (version 2.09) hoping that this well documented issue would be fixed. No luck unfortunately. Quite disheartening.
I love fences, but this is a real killer. It seems the issue can be solved simply by right clicking on the desktop and forcing fences to load immediately, but stardock needs to solve this one. Fences is a great program and I love using it, would love it to return to prominence among my favorite programs.
I don't get any illusion at all.
If anything my system WITH Fences on 7 Ult boots faster [to full boot] than my Lappy WITHOUT Fences on 8 Pro [TO FULL BOOT].
Fences doesn't slow anything down...it just hilights 8's completion of booting with a more apparent indicator...
BTW...before anyone starts with 'but...2 different machines...' both are i7s .... except the Lappy is the newer second generation i7 ...
...and before anyone starts with 'but the Lappy has pre-installed bloatware....' ...no, it was a clean install... and conversely the desktop machine has had 3.5 years of accumulated dross ...
WIN7 64bit
I see the completed fences desktop for just a moment.
Then it dissapears and Fences is loading the desktop again, but very slowly.
Did someone see the same?
Win 8 x64 Pro
Yes I am seeing this, sometimes it's ok, but from a cold boot it usually fails. I am starting to look into this my self, as it's getting annoying.
As you say, the fences appear momentarily. To me it is looking like Windows Explorer is crashing, and restarting, and the screen goes black for a short period. It also mean the fences and the REST of the background tasks stop loading. So I am left with a half booted machine with many background apps not running. To solve this I must log out and back in again, and all tasks then load, including fences.
I am not blaming fences, I can only say that it occurs at the point that fences appears on the display.
Obviously I should disable fences for a while, and monitor the cold boot over a couple of days, just to eliminate or confirm that fences is or is not part of the problem
I have just done a test and had a surprising result as far as I am concerned.
Bare in mind I have only done 3 cold boots since the above post, but ...... by disabling the 2 Fences startup items in the task manager, Windows 8 (SSD install) is blisteringly fast to the W8 start screen. I know this is irrelevant, as the system isn't really usable, nor have my backgrounds tasks loaded yet.
If I click to go to desktop, I have a blank screen with just the background image, and all my backgrounds tasks load, and display in the tray (where appropriate). The admittedly limited number of cold boots that I have done, have worked perfectly. Same goes for reboots, and logging out and in again.
The surprising thing for me, which I quite like actually, is that Fences will still load the moment that I right click on the desktop. So this will become my workaround. I will leave Fences disabled in the startup, and just right click on the desktop to display the fences. After that Fences work as normal, where you double left click or swipe to hide certain fences.
This reply might be somewhat late, however after fiddling around a little on my own, I have found two possible workarounds for fences to be loaded instantly.
The first method, after reading the comments above about how Start8 uses its own service, I decided to try out creating my own for Fences. This is currently the method I use myself, and it works perfectly fine! First, you need to disable Fences from the startup manager. After you have done this, you need to open an elevated command prompt window, and paste the below line into the window (This requires you to have used the standard install directory, if not, you obviously need to edit the directory it points to.):
That's all really. To remove the service, all you have to do is open an elevated command prompt and type the following into it:
(The method below I'm not even sure if works with standard windows 8, however it works perfectly fine with start8 installed and ex7forw8.)
The second method, and possibly easiest to revert from if anything, is first to disable Fences from the startup manager. After you have done this, go to your Stardock\Fences location, and create a shortcut to fences.exe. Copy/Cut this, and paste it into your startup folder within your start menu. This'll make the fences load instantly.
REMEMBER! Do this at your own risk! It's in no way, shape or form endorsed by the Stardock team, simply one user's hacky fix
So it now loads instantly for you ? I have the same trouble that it does not load sometimes and that it takes too long to load explorer crashesIf i understood correctly all you did was opening the comand promt. via admin priviledge from the taskmanager or from the apps directly.
1. press windows key - type run / press windows+R 2. enter taskmgr / press enter 3. open rider file / create or run new task 4. type cmd / and check the administrative priviledges box.from there you added / sc create Fences binPath="%ProgramFiles(x86)%\Stardock\Fences\Fences.exe" start=auto ?but fences was or is already set as auto...
Pretty much what I did was:
1: Disable Fences as a start-up item in Task Manager
2: Open elevated CMD and run sc create Fences binPath="%ProgramFiles(x86)%\Stardock\Fences\Fences.exe" start=auto
That's it Loads instantly as soon as explorer loads for me now
Mhh did you contact Stardock about this yet ?You disabled the autostart and replaced by another service with tha same attribute that is system boot or autostart.I just tried IRC support but support time already passed if not you could write them a mail. Alright just got to talk to a mod in IRC and he is passing your post to the devs.
I haven't contacted them yet myself, no. I'll toss them an email as soon as I have time.
Unfortunately that does not work for me. The service is there and it's set to auto, but the service does not start on boot.
If I now go to the services and try to start the service manually, it will not start, just errors out.
I have just installed the new beta (2.11), restored everything to normal, and fences appears to crash Windows Explorer, and prevent my start up items loading, so no change there.
I have gone back to my method I stated in an earlier post. Disable the Fences startup items, boot the system, then at any time after that just right click on the desktop and my fences load.
There definitely something that Fences does not like about my system, even though I did a W8 refresh a while back.
I do have another problem which I reported maybe a year ago, but no solution was found via tech support. If I right click on any program shortcut within a fence, select open file location, nothing happens. I have to select 'properties' instead then 'open file location' from the pop up window that appears. But this is off-topic ......
I did quick search on the error below, and a very quick scan of the results says this error relates to Net Framework 1.1, and occurs when trying to Stop a service ....... not starting one. TBH I cannot be bothered to try and track the error down at the moment. It's too hot, and I have other things to do ....
I'm sorry to hear, that being said though, did you restart your computer after adding the service? If you manually try to start it, it'll cause an error, as it's only supposed to run the .exe on boot, and not continuously try to run the .exe.
I restarted twice, one of them being a total shut down.
I only manually tried to start the service because it did not start automatically. In the picture above you can see it's not running, even though it's on auto.
C'est la vie ...... there must be mutual hatred between my PC and Fences
After testing on another system, I wasn't able to duplicate my results from my desktop for whatever odd reason. However, I have another method you could try, this one is tested on both machines, and works perfectly fine on both.
1: Create a new text file
2: Paste the below into the said text file:
Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Run]"Fences"="\"C:\\Program Files (x86)\\Stardock\\Fences\\Fences.exe\" /startup"
3: Save the file as a .reg file, and run it. Accept whatever prompt comes up.
4: Reboot system, and Fences now loads instantly.
If you would be so kind as to test this method as well?
Thanks for effort
I can't see this working unfortunately, as that key is actually created when the service is created by the elevated command prompt. I have just used the command below, and the reg key in your post was created
sc create Fences binPath="%ProgramFiles(x86)%\Stardock\Fences\Fences.exe" start=auto
Cheers
EDIT:
That is true, however the registry key created by the service doesn't have the /startup parameter, which seems to be the magic touch here
It shows a start up value in the image I have just added above. That key was created by the elevated command prompt method
Interesting this .....
1/ I used the elevated prompt to remove the Fences service that I added above (in the image).
2/ I re-booted and checked the registry entry - The Fences key was still in the Registry
3/ I manually deleted the reg key
4/ I created a new reg key file as you stated above, and entered it into the registry
5/ I re-checked the registry and confirmed the new key was there.
6/ I re-enabled the 2 standard Fences Start up items via the task manager.
7/ So far I have rebooted twice and Fences is working normally and loading correctly on boot
Strange but good, as long as it holds out. I need a few more boots to feel safe
So this is looking good, thank you very much for your help.
EDIT: I have just done a full cold (power down) re-boot. As I know my W8 has the Kernel quick boot option enabled. This boot was successful too. Icons in the fences are a bit slow to populate (even on my Vertex 3 SSD). However everything is booting normally at the moment, so I am pleased
Passing along to the devs
Here we are a few days later, and all is well. Just the occasional booting mishap, but ok 95% of the time.
When I said above that the icons in the fences are a bit slow to populate, I meant just a few of them. Sometimes I might get one row of icons in a fence (one particular fence), not showing. However one click one the desktop and they will appear.
Generally I am a lot happier now .....
Hi,
I thought I'd comment on this as I've just spent the evening trying to fix my slow starting Fences (Win 7 x64), and seem to have succeeded.
I noticed that Fences started up quickly at work but not at home, which got me thinking about what shortcuts I had on the desktop.
I removed all shortcuts that pointed to remote documents/folders/servers. This seems to have resolved the issue.
It seems as though Fences tries to locate the item pointed to by a shortcut when the shortcut is added to a fence (or at startup). If the place where the item should be doesn't exist (because it's on a server that isn't reachable) then it seems to hang Explorer.
I would guess that the more unreachable shortcuts you have, the slower Fences will be to load - but that's supposition.
Hopefully this will be useful to others. It may even be relevant to you Windows 8 guys.
Chris.
There are many great features available to you once you register, including:
Sign in or Create Account
