I too am having the explorer issue with 3.13.  I reverted back to 3.09 but still have it.  Never had until 3.13 though.  Right now I'm just not using fences.

Hi, 

The same  problem here. Its corporate notebook. Fences 3.13

Didnt try all found "solutions". Just try uninstal, purge, reinstal 3.13. Problem persist.

So again uninstall, purge and reinstal 3.09. Problem solved, Fences start working.

P.

The only other example of this happening is for corp deployments is covered here:

https://forums.stardock.com/502301

Sean Drohan
Stardock Support Manager

I am seeing this issue with 3.13.3 as well. Previous versions did not have this problem. I also noticed this after installing the latest Windows Updates and rebooting. Incompatibility between Fences and these updates could also be a possible cause:

https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/topic/september-14-2021-kb5005565-os-builds-19041-1237-19042-1237-and-19043-1237-292cf8ed-f97b-4cd8-9883-32b71e3e6b44

https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/topic/kb4023057-update-for-windows-10-update-service-components-fccad0ca-dc10-2e46-9ed1-7e392450fb3a

It seems Fences is crashing Explorer immediately on startup, causing the error.

Event Viewer shows the following crash information:

Faulting application name: explorer.exe, version: 10.0.19041.1202, time stamp: 0xdba1e981

Faulting module name: DesktopDock64.dll, version: 3.1.3.3, time stamp: 0x61081edf

Exception code: 0xc0000409

Fault offset: 0x0000000000024434

Faulting process id: 0x54f8

Faulting application start time: 0x01d7ae975f08e1b4

Faulting application path: C:\WINDOWS\explorer.exe

Faulting module path: c:\program files (x86)\stardock\fences\DesktopDock64.dll

Report Id: b74a1e2b-4fd6-4177-b78a-6682640992f5

Faulting package full name: 

Faulting package-relative application ID: 

 

The NT error code 0x409 corresponds to: "The system detected an overrun of a stack-based buffer in this application."

Should also mention I am using standard Windows Firewall and Windows Defender... no strange or exotic anti-virus here!

This error can also prevent Windows from properly running Startup items from the Start Menu, as Fences can possibly crash Explorer before it can run Startup items. Fences should not be interfering with this process.

Running the purge batch file does not work properly as the uninstaller is unable to remove the menu DLL due to it being in use by multiple processes, and the uninstaller lacking the ability to schedule a file for deletion after reboot. After working around this problem and running the purge to completion, uninstalling through Steam, and then rebooting, I was able to then reinstall Fences and it seemed to work fine, but all my settings and fence configurations were lost. I manually recreated my fence layout.

I then ran the purge tool for Curtains to fix an issue with Curtains (configuration window would not open). After uninstalling Curtains and rebooting, Fences broke again.

Fence's saslog does not contain anything useful (no errors). Fence's troubleshooting log contains:

001FB781X - FencesUI Start - /verifyintegrety

          - Fences Version: 3.1.3.3

          - 9/20/2021 11:37:22 PM

001FB8D9X - FencesUI Start - /fixpermissions

001FB946X - FencesUI End   - /fixpermissions

001FBA9EX - FencesUI End   - /verifyintegrety

Repeated four times (as it tries in vain to start without crashing).

I modified the registry settings for Fences to manually remove a Folder Portal I had made. This allowed Fences to start successfully; there is something broken with Folder Portals.

I can sometimes start up Fences with a Folder Portal, sometimes not (I am task killing Explorer and restarting to test).

I tried to remove some icons from the folder I was testing with to see if this could be related to the issue some other people had with certain icons causing problems with Fences. However when I did this, simply creating the Folder Portal caused Fences to crash! So there is some other problem here regarding creation of Explorer views for Folder Portals.

Hi @basj,

I read at the beginning of this thread that you asked whether Forcepoint was installed on the laptop.
Is Forcepoint blocking Fences 3.13 or Explorer to get such an error? And is there a way to have this excluded in Forcepoint or somehow?
The strange thing is that a colleague of mine uses it and also do I. We both have Forcepoint installed via the company, but he's getting the error constantly and I don't.
We both are administrators on our laptops, no errors found via sfc /scannow or scanhealth command to exclude some corrupted Windows files.
On my laptop it will show the same error when I try to do something that triggers the Explorer (via my Logitech MX Master 2S mouse, pushing the button to activate multi-window for the opened applications/files). After a restart all is back to normal again.

So I'm thinking whether this has to do with Forcepoint and/or latest Windows 10 21H1 (Enterprise) 2010-10 October Cumulative Update (KB5006670) as it is somehow working properly on my own laptop, but not on my colleague's laptop?

This is happening to me. I have been posting in the discord for weeks and have gotten almost no response. I was told about the purge tool not long ago and used that as instructed. Purged, rebooted, reinstalled. I tried both versions and both versions give the same result after a reboot immediately after installing. The product is unusable. Also, when it is installed and you attempt to load a snapshot then it causes the error message and crashes Fences 3/4. I am going to try and find an older copy of Fences even if I have to pirate it. I have paid for it so I should be allowed to have a copy that works.

Removed by admin.