Solved Autostart explorer.exe on shutdown in system shell mode

geoffwoz · December 20th, 2008, 05:35 AM

I have run into a few issues with my configuration, relating to minlogon and running as system shell. Most of these have been seen before and I've worked around them OK.

the hardest one was that the system power button doesn't work with minlogon - fixed by calling shutdown app from CF suspend action.

The last issue I have is when the shutdown commences, CF exits (as expected), this then causes CF to start explorer.exe to replace itself (just like how explorer is launched when exiting CF in system shell mode).

The problem is at this point the system is shutting down, so I get an ugly error message about explorer.exe failed to initialize as windows is shutting down.

I have configured my registry winlogon/CONFIG=7, and that has no impact on the issue. THat is because it is not minlogon spawning the explorer.exe, it is CF.

Is there a way to stop CF from launching explorer.exe when it shuts down? Especially if it is when the system is shutting down.

This isn't a killer, just makes the shutdown a bit ugly.

Scott · December 20th, 2008, 04:46 PM

please reproduce, then make and post a system report (be sure to enable logging), this one looks like a bug, but I remember fixing this at one point, anyway, I will be watching for system report...

Scott · December 30th, 2008, 05:44 PM

is this still an issue? does anyone use this and work for you?

geoffwoz · January 2nd, 2009, 06:41 AM

sorry I've been off on holidays so haven't had a chance, but will get a support report together ASAP.

The issue continues to occur for me, it definitely looks like when CF is shut down forcefully by the OS, it tries to spawn a replacement explorer, which fails as the system is shutting down.

geoffwoz · January 4th, 2009, 03:01 AM

OK I don't think I can create a useful support report, as the problem happens only on shutdown, and by the time the system has restarted the old log information has been overwritten after the restart.

Is there anything else I can provide?

It should be fairly easy to reproduce, simply configure the ignition off action to perform a shutdown. (I need this as I'm running minlogon, which doesn't correctly perform a shutdown with the power button action).

THe problem I have is it only appears to happen on shutdown, and as I have my system running with minlogon and as system shell, I can't capture the logs before the next restart.

David · January 4th, 2009, 12:39 PM

I understand, we will try to reproduce...

does it happen with a restart as well?

david

geoffwoz · January 8th, 2009, 05:01 AM

David, the problem does not occur when performing a restart.

It only seems to occur when the "ingition off" action (action performed when a power state change event is received) is set to Shutdown.

To me it looks like CF should recognise in this circumstance that it has initiated the shutdown, and should not try to spawn a explorer instance when the shutdown requests CF to close.

geoffwoz · January 8th, 2009, 07:33 PM

Just one other point, I've use an XP tweak tool (can't remember which one) that has a tweak to allow for fast shutdown.

I think this controls how long windows waits for a process to exit after being requested to shutdown before it kills the process. So it is possible that in my case CF is being killed more forcefully than usual.

geoffwoz · January 13th, 2009, 11:37 PM

Scott, David, are you guys back from holidays yet? Just wondering if you had any ideas.

David · January 14th, 2009, 02:40 PM

we are looking into this for the next update, it is on our list...

david