Hello all,

I am just evaluating winstep and it didnt take long until i ran into this error: every time i right clicked a file item in nextstarts menus, nextstart crashed with run-time error 91.

I did some investigation in this subject and found the error was related to a specific registry entry that is responsible for additional context menu items.

This registry setting works fine with ms explorer, it works when i right click files in the explorer, but it crashes nextstart when it gets called.

Removing this entry from my registry made the error go away, although i lost a little bit of functionality (i use this context menu item quite often).

Maybe the developers can have a look at it. the registry entry is:

HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\*\shellex\ContextMenuHandlers\FileMenu]
@="{53250000-cca9-11ce-946f-444553540000}

which points to

HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\CLSID\{53250000-cca9-11ce-946f-444553540000}\InProcServer32
@="C:\\Programme\\WinBatch\\system\\FileMenu.dll"

which is part of the famous winbatch software (if you dont know it, its a macro language that lets you automate everything on your pc).

As far as i have seen, there are some people in this community that ran into the same problem and it hasnt been resolved yet. If you use winbatch, delete the first registry key. If not, here is my advice how to find the setting that causes the error:

1. Backup your registry

2. Open your registry (only if you know what you are doing) and navigate to HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\*\shellex\ContextMenuHandlers (at the very beginning of your registry)

3. Export this key with all subkeys to a file

4. Delete one subkey and test if nextstart is still having trouble (right click a few FILE items in nextstarts menus)

5. If nextstart crashes, kill explorer.exe from taskmanager and restart explorer.exe and nextstart3.exe from there. Goto step 4 again.

6. If nextstart works fine, restore your subkeys by importing the file you exported in step 3

7. Now delete only the subkey that you deleted last. Maybe you could note the modules you identified in tis thread, so the developers can get the picture.

I hope i could help. Best regards, Thomas

Hi Thomas, nice detective work. Not usual to see someone going to such trouble in finding out the cause of a problem - they usually just blame the application reporting the error.

Unfortunately, given your description, I'm 99.9% sure that the problem lies with the Winbatch context menu handler and not with NextSTART - unless you are not using the latest 3.4 beta (there were some problems with context menus in version 3.3 in which Windows would sometimes release the context menu interface pointer without telling NextSTART - but this would usually result in a 'Access Violation' error, not a '91 Object variable or With block variable not set' error).

Which NextSTART version are you currently running? If it is the latest beta and the problem still persists, I'm willing to install WinBatch here and give it a go. However, as I said, more likely than not, the problem is with Winbatch itself - you probably don't get that error in Explorer because Explorer silently 'traps' the error.

Thanks for all the useful info.

Hi Jorge,

I am testing the 3.3 version. I am not to much a fan of beta versions.

But i am a programmer myself and love to touch the ground of problems. I will install 3.4 beta and test it.

Best regards, Thomas

Thanks. I kind of figured you were also a programmer.

Our betas, btw, are usually the equivalent of other people's release candidates.

New day, new luck.

Jorge, you are totally right. The error apperars only in 3.3, not in 3.4 beta and your beta runs absolutely stable.

Two other question: Cascaded context menus (like those of WinRAR or WinZIP) are not supported by NextStart ? And where did the "open with" command go?

Best regards, Thomas

Hello,

I ran into another problem. A while after I had installed the 3.4 beta, my windows settings couldnt be saved, I couldnt logoff and logon again without restarting and even got a few system crashes.

It took me quite a while of tweaking my system settings back and forth till I found the cause:

Many system tweaking utilities like TuneUp Utilities, Ashampoo PowerUp and others offer an option to separate the "explorer shell process" from
open "explorer windows" (let them run as different tasks). While this adds some stability to the normal windows environment, NextStep gets in trouble with that setting enabled - at least on my machine. I can enable/disable that setting and enable/disable NextStart and get/dont-get problems.

Maybe it has to do with NextStarts multi-user support, because I had it disabled in version 3.3 and didnt notice any problems with the explorer process setting.

Nevertheless I want to tell you that I fell in love with NextStart. I also tested LiteStep, DesktopX, ObjectBar, ObjectDock, Aston and Talisman. NextStep ist by far the MOST STABLE program and has one of the best complexity/usability ratios.

On my system NS runs in team with Win*Blind, Win*FX, Virt*Desk, Tray*Fact and Pow*Menu. Maybe "Win*2010" will sometimes make it up to that point of look and feel.

Best regards, Thomas

Dificult to say what the problem can be since you are OBVIOUSLY not a normal user. However, I can also trust you to find out what is wrong (if anything).

The reason NextSTART is so stable is because the focus has always been on functionality instead of eye-candy - plus it has been around since 1998.

Have you tried Workshelf as well?

Sorry, only noticed the above question now.

The problem with sub-menus in context menus (cascading context menus) is that they are owner drawn menus and therefore cannot be replaced with NextSTART menus (the contents of those cascading sub-menus is generated 'on-the-fly' by the application associated with the context menu handler and therefore cannot be accessed by NextSTART).

What I've been thinking about doing is to still allow the menus to be generated - however, being owner drawn, they will not be skinned by NextSTART. Makes sense?

Hi Jorge,

as for the context menus, maybe an configuration option to show/not show would be a good idea.

As for other problems i ran into, i will install 3.4 final and then report to you.

Thomas

Agreed! Unfortunately it was too late to add this for these releases, but I'll make sure to add it in the next.



Thanks. You will probably run into the same issues since I didn't tackle this - I'm just not quite sure why multiple Explorer processes can/would be a problem.

Thomas,

Tx for sharing this info.

WINXPSP2 + wb installed

I had problems deleting files (rightklick file) i didnt get any context menu...I knew winbatch was the cause. Because the wb popmenu wasnt running whis was related to a subsdirectory on disk.

Your hint helped me a lot!

I deleted the filemenusubkey and the problem was solved. I was getting desperated and think about reinstalling an Image but my I was not able to backup my disk with the most recent data beacuse lack of diskspace.

Thanx a lot man!

The problem also occures when you delete a related subdirectory on disk
And again: Thanx man!

1) Download the file shexview to see all your context handlers, handy!


2) Here a handy tip to pin anything to your start menu
[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\*\shellex\ContextMenuHandlers\{a2a9545d-a0c2-42b4-9708-a0b2badd77c8}]
@="Start Menu Pin"



And again TX MAN FOR SHARING THIS INFO...