re: SysFader will not fade away
Sunday, June 2, 2002 at 5:39 pm
Windows 2000 Annoyances Discussion Forum
Posted by Abel
(3 messages posted)
Hi jc,
Explorer.exe and windows processes in general are extendable in certain ways with
in-process services (usually dlls). Well known are context menu handlers (WinZip
is an example), drag and drop handlers (again, WinZip) and SysTray processes, which
reside at least partly in the Explorer.exe address space (WinAmp is an example).
Of course, these handlers should respond to end process messages, but if they don't,
the system, or in this case, Explorer.exe may hang.
The whole matter itself can become quite complex if you have to investigate by hand
what dlls might cause this problem. The easiest way is checking all applications
you installed and removing the most suspicious once, especially those that you think
must dig deep into the system to do what they do.
To make matters worse, any device driver can also cause your system (or any process)
to hang, but hey, what's new! For quite a while I couldn't quit my system at all
(unless I used the reset button) due to a Matrox Millennium graphics device driver.
An update helped in that case.
Getting back to what you said: it's not SysFader anymore but Explorer.exe that hangs.
This is basically the same. SysFader was part of the browseui.dll, that one is loaded
by Explorer.exe. If the (erroneous) message showed that SysFader could not quit,
it most probably was Explorer.exe in the first place that couldn't quit.
As a final note, in networked environments Explorer.exe often stops responding when
the network is suddenly not available anymore, the traffic is suddenly blocked (a
firewall may do that, but also a wrong unloading of network devices) or due to a
block it can't release remote handles, which causes the same result: a hanging explorer.exe.
If you have a networked environment you can simply check this: just close all your
network connections, log on locally and see if the same problem still occurs.
Good luck with culprit-hunting, you'll need it!
Cheers,
Abel
On Sunday, June 2, 2002 at 3:49 pm, jc wrote:
>Hi Abel, thanks for your reply. I did finally come across the transition effects
>options, and turned it off. Now instead, it is Explorer that will not die. EVERY
>time I start up and then shut down Windows, Explorer fails to exit. Maybe it is
>something I am running; I do not have ZA but I do have others like IconCorral and
>Freemem Pro. I will turn those off and see if one of those is not the culprit.
>Thanks!
>
>~>jc
>
>
>
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