I am evaluating Winstep Xtreme and just tried Workshelf for the first time. Upon launch, I see the "please wait" while Workshelf is initializing, however that message stays up forever. At the same time, it locks out my Windows task bar (NextStart is not running), Ctrl-Esc, etc. The only option that I have is to bring up task manager and logout or restart.

Does anyone have any ideas why this would happen?

I am using the 7.4 release I just downloaded today. My system specs are:

MB: Asus Striker Extreme
CPU: Intel Kentsfield 6850 Quad core
RAM: 4GB
Hard disk: 4 x Sata drives;
Video: NVidia GeForce 8800 Ultra, 768Mb; Forceware 162 (I think) just downloaded from NVidia site)
Sound: Creative X-Fi Elite Pro (Drivers from CD, upgraded from site)
Atech USB card reader
Floppy

The first two hard drives, have a version of Windows:
C: is Vista 64 (I don't use this O/S as of yet)
D: is Win XP Pro 32-bit; this is my base O/S

More info:

After spending some time disabling various applications, it turns out that this simple little utility named "HDDLED" (www.hddled.com) that displays indicators on your screen when hard disk partitions are being read/written causes workshelf to hang in initialization.

What is the chance that I could get WinStep to help try and figure out why this happens and if there is a work around?

I installed this app, exited workshelf and restarted it and it workshelf worked fine. I did not reboot to test this however.

Hi Lee!

Glad you took the time to try and figure out the conflict, since, given the circunstances, it would have been next to impossible on my side. As you found out, sometimes applications conflict for one reason or another, and, worse, only on specific system and/or configurations. This does not necessarily mean one or the other application are to blame.

I still have very much present the problem with a well known Logitech web cam Control Panel applet which had (has?) a bug that caused WorkShelf and NextSTART (and other applications as well, EXCEPT Explorer) to hang when displaying the contents of the Control Panel. In this specific case, a work around was eventually found, but I was forced to buy a Logitech Web Cam (great hardware, bad software, by the way ) to solve a problem that was not even caused by Winstep software. Contacting Logitech proved fruitless, of course.

Anyway, I'll give a shot at installing HDD LED to try reproducing the problem here.