[Taskbar Height and Icon Size] restart prompt fails to start explorer

[jmain33]

@m417z Restarting from the prompt when changing the button width closes out explorer and leaves everything blacked out (both the desktop and taskbar), not bringing back any of the GUI elements for Windows 11.

[m417z]

The restart option just runs the following command:

cmd.exe /c "taskkill /F /IM explorer.exe & start explorer"

If you open cmd and run the taskkill /F /IM explorer.exe & start explorer command, does it work? If not, are you getting any errors?

[jmain33]

Doing precisely as you instructed: On my system, running that exact command; closed explorer and relaunched it as would be expected.

This is the result from the cmd entry.

 

When doing this through the command prompt, there was a delay of less than 2 seconds before the GUI reappeared. When the mod executes those instructions the visuals never come back - the entire screen stays black... once this has occurred (with the screen still blacked out...) when I once again run the command you provided, cmd says explorer.exe cannot be found.

  Yet in this very condition launching explorer from the task manager dialogue works just fine.

Here is what the logs collected of the TH&IS mod restart attempt: DebugViewConsole 1.8.0.102 Failed Restart of Explorer.txt

[m417z]

Not sure why there would be a difference between cmd and the mod running the same command. What if you run (Win+R) this command:

cmd.exe /c "taskkill /F /IM explorer.exe & start explorer"

Does it work?

[jmain33]

Doing that fails to restart explorer, just like the Windhawk mod; then, I went back and executed the instructions in cmd.exe itself, this time without choosing run as administrator, and it failed just like all the other methods. So it seems like this is very likely about system privileges.

[m417z]

Hmm, maybe there's some policy on your computer which forbids a regular user from running explorer.exe. Do you have any security software such as an antivirus?

Other than that, I'm not sure why it wouldn't work, and what can be done in the mod to fix that. If you have an idea of how to reproduce the issue, let me know.

[jmain33]

I have security software installed (Malwarebytes & Trend Micro), but stopped paying for them a while a go since they're not really useful to cautious users; and disabled all their startup entries and Windows services. So it's just the standard Windows Security that runs on my PC, the other applications don't have any active processes.

Other than that, the only tweaking I use is Winaero Tweaker. Though, nothing that I've changed with it (it does list everything that it has made a change to) should have effected my admin privileges?! I only have one user account and it is listed as the default administrator account, so I'm at a loss for now.

I also haven't enabled "Require UAC elevation for running Windhawk", so Windhawk should still have admin privileges. Anyway, from the trouble shooting you had me do, this clearly isn't about Windhawk's settings.