unhooking dlls

Hello Yuri

We have noticed a new problem lately in that we wanted simply to right-click a menu item to rename it and the whole computer locks up every time - even the visible clock stops. Using Process explorer we see some TLB items listed in the dll list that are connected. Next we closed the TLB with the dlls showing (i.e. weathermon.dll, uptime.dll, tlblcock.dll, wmlite.dll, tlb.dll etc.) and restarted Process explorer. Those dlls are still there even though the TLB is not open. The computer is still nearly locked up.

It seems the dlls have not terminated under Explorer.exe. Any ideas? Perhaps we have a corrupted file or two.

EDIT: Sometimes upon right-click we get a "Runtime error 226" if this is helpful. We suspect TLB is not to blame but some clash of programmes on this machine.

TLB 3.0

TLB runs as part of the explorer.exe process, so all dll's are opened by explorer.exe. You need to shutdown explorer.exe to "release" the dll's (choose Shutdown from the start menu, and hold Shift+Ctrl+Alt while clicking the Cancel button in the Shutdown dialog).

Process Explorer can close handles, but cannot unload dll's. I've been searching for a tool that can do this, but I doubt whether it's possible at all...

Sometimes when we have closed Explorer it can restart automatically and sometimes it does not. Since the "Run" command line is part of Explorer then how can one get it back other than with a restart?

Haha, good question... I believe explorer.exe only automatically restarts if it has crashed (so it terminated itself), not when it's terminated by the user.

In Windows 2000/XP it's easy: just press Ctrl+Alt+Del to get the Taskmanager, where you can simply use File->Run...

In Windows 95/98, you should open a command line prompt before shutting down explorer.exe. Then you can just type "explorer" at the prompt and hit enter to restart it...
Btw, Process Explorer also has a File->Run option, so you could use this instead of the command prompt...

Btw, you say 'sometimes' you get the runtime error when right-clicking... Can you give more details, like how often does it occur, and where do you right-click, does explorer terminate then? It might be related to the mysterious crashes I reported when right-clicking a TLB shortcut)

We have just learned a little more. We uninstalled two different programmes that had multiple dlls and that were dependent upon Explorer as Process Explorer showed a address sharing clash. We retried the right-click in a TLB menu item (to test the rename function) and found the hang-up still there. This time we just left the cursor there to see what would happen. Explorer and the whole computer froze again but after about 45 seconds the context menu appeared and everything was all right for that instance!

So we believe there is still some software clash most likely cause by some software other than TLB (because Yuri is a very good coder)! This clash involves Explorer, the right-click function and ???

A last test was this - in Explorer with no TLB open or running we right-clicked on a file to again try a rename and again the same problem happened!

This is an Explorer/Windows/other? problem but we need some genius to assist us as we do not have the smarts for this sort of thing.

A last item - for about 1 week now every time upon startup we get an Explorer crash which says this -

EXPLORER caused an invalid page fault in
module <unknown> at 0000:00000000.
Registers:
EAX=00000000 CS=016f EIP=00000000 EFLGS=00010202
EBX=00000430 SS=0177 ESP=039ef730 EBP=039ef7d0
ECX=00000430 DS=0177 ESI=039ef7c8 FS=0fdf
EDX=039ef760 ES=0177 EDI=00000008 GS=0000
Bytes at CS:EIP:
00 00 00 00 65 04 70 00 16 00 db 04 65 04 70 00
Stack dump:
20b01a9e 00000430 00000000 039ef760 00000038 00000000 20b01e05 00000430 00000000 039ef760 00000038 00000000 81a41780 00000000 76003997 7600e404

Trying to get rid of the problem we click OK and Explorer starts up again. This time no crash but every time we try to Restart the computer (Start>Shutdown>Restart) the desktop icons and toolbars only go away and come back but not the desktop wallpaper indicating an incomplete shutdown. There is no power cycle and no monitor restart. We must again a second time click on Restart to get a "real" restart.

Sorry if this stumps everyone. It really does not appear to be a TLB problem at all. ???

Here is a shot of the dll view from Process Viewer with EXPLORER.EXE selected. The yellow means
"Highlight Relocated DLLs
When you select the Relocated DLLs entry in the Options|Configure Highlighting dialog any DLLs that are not loaded at their programmed base address show in yellow. DLLs that cannot load at their base address because other files are already mapped there are relocated by the loader, which consumes CPU and makes parts of the DLL that are modified as part of the relocation un-sharable."

Anyone ?