after upgrading to 22H2 pro windows 11 and trying ALL suggested solutions in the thread above, i downgraded to fences 3.0 to make it work. very disappointed with the support. please contact me when you resolve this critical bug in your software that's conflicting with windows 11 pro.

While it is disappointing that you were not able to resolve this, Fences 4 has literally 100s of thousands of installs.  Were this a 'critical bug in our software', we would have an avalanche of such reports - we do not.  That is not to say there is not an issue with Fences that needs to be addressed - it just that if there is, very few people have conditions on their PCs that can demonstrate it. 

Do 'trying ALL suggested solutions' mean that after you did the Win11 update, you also did a clean boot:

https://support.stardock.com/space/SHC/1332445272/Fences+Clean+Boot

Sean Drohan
Stardock Product Lifecycle Manager

It is kinda odd this seems to be happening on clean installs. You would that would be the ideal situation. 

If it was windows. Why is fences 3 working on a fresh install, but fences 4 not.... 

Fences 4 worked on my machine before but that was upgraded from 10 to 11... Had to do a fresh install and now its broken. I work in IT and its not the first time i seen software malfunctioning after microsoft updates that took the developer a while to adress the issue and fix it ( i work in IT healthcare) so that it works on several machines is possible. Thats why developers have to keep updating and testing their software in alot of situations. Especially after updates that can break things. 

I have the exact same issue as medredraider. Brand New Microsoft Surface. Latest upgrade of windows. Fences 4.  I have tried all the steps in your startup document. No solution.

To be frank, Fences 3 is not Fences 4 and Window10 is not Windows 11.  Those are big variables, Alexxie.

Then I am sure you can appreciate how valuable it is to be able to readily reproduce an issue.  If that is not possible, we need large groups that have the same problem.  While it may seem like a lot here, it's very very small. 

Believe me, if we can find that it's Fences, I'll get on the bat phone to the devs.  The task is finding out what combo of apps \ settings you all have that may be giving Fences fits. 

That said, what may be helpful is if anything is being reported in Event viewer.  Since Fences runs in the Windows Explorer process, I doubt Fences itself would be indicted but I would still like to see what is being reported. 

Sean Drohan
Stardock Product Lifecycle Manager

Fences 4 is now working for me. It is one of two things. Either I never rebooted between install and use, or I have been syncing my desktop with version 3 on a different computer. In either case, I disabled the OneDrive sync of my desktop, and rebooted my computer, and fences behaves as it always has.

Very pleased to hear this and thanks for the update.

Sean Drohan
Stardock Product Lifecycle Manager

Same issue for me.   I just upgraded hardware.  Fresh Windows 10 install.

"Enable fences" does nothing.  Tried all the suggestions so far.  No change.    Sick of rebooting machine.

Processor    AMD Ryzen 5 5600G with Radeon Graphics            3.90 GHz
Installed RAM    32.0 GB (27.9 GB usable)
System type    64-bit operating system, x64-based processor

Edition    Windows 10 Pro
Version    22H2
Installed on    ‎12/‎21/‎2022
OS build    19045.2364
Experience    Windows Feature Experience Pack 120.2212.4190.0

Hello,
Sorry to hear you are having issues. Need to know you on Fences V3 or V4? Also, have you tried all suggested steps mentioned in this thread?

Thanks
Basj,
Stardock Community Assistant.

V4.  Per my previous comment "Tried all the suggestions so far".

Have you tried install it in sandbox mode and see if it work in there? https://forums.stardock.com/486084/fences-support-faq#sandbox

Thank you,

Basj,
Stardock Community Assistant

It was one of the previous suggestions and I said I had tried ALL suggestions mentioned, so yes,  I tried it.

I started Windows Sandbox.  I went to your site and downloaded the trial version.  I entered my product key and email.

Right click on desktop,  select "enable fences" the popup dissapears but Fences is not enabled.   Selecting a region of icons with left mouse button does nothing.   Right clicking on desktop.  top of menu still shows "enable fences".

There is a License.sig inside ProgramData in the virtualized environment.   Fences.exe is running as pid 2600.

I also tried disabling all startup services on normal (non virtualized) system, which was also a prior suggestion.   Same.

The above has taken several hours so please if you require more, I will need to see that Stardock has first put in some debugging effort of their own.

Thank you!

Great, thank you for the input. I have forwarded your problem/question to Stardock Support Team for their assistance. Please keep an eye on this thread for any updates. We appreciate your feedback and patience.

Thank you.

Basj,
Stardock Community Assistant

Is there an update please.  I didn't pay money for this program to be unable to even install it.

Was Fences 4 working in your system before you upgraded your hardware? What hardware was upgrade?

Thank you,

Basj,
Stardock Community Assistant

Previously you said " I have forwarded your problem/question to Stardock Support Team for their assistance."  So lets please have some assistance from Stardock.   Given their lack of a response, you requesting we provide yet more information makes it look like you're just stringing us along.

Thank you.

I am trying to get more information from you so that I can forward more information to them.

Thank you,

Basj,
Stardock Community Assistant

If you wish to connect me with Stardock support I will answer any questions they have.

They will respond here.

Thank you,

Basj,
Stardock Community Assistant

I would like to suggest for everybody who still have this issue to try Alexxie79 steps.

1. Check OneDrive desktop Sync and disable it. Reboot.
2. Check if you have any link on your desktop that link to shared network files or folder.

Thank you,

Basj,
Stardock Community Assistant

All,

Please try this

Problem

After boot, Fences will not enable when complete nor will it respond when using the right-click context menu on the desktop:

Solution

What is likely the case is that Fences is indeed starting but crashing due to a conflict - likely due to an icon on the desktop. This can likely be determined after a boot and reviewing the Event Viewer logs in Windows.

To test:

1. Create a folder on the desktop - name it 'All Icons'

2. Move every desktop icon possible to it. Some icons like Trash and ‘My Computer’ are not moveable but all non-Windows essential ones should be.

3. Reboot and see if Fences is enabled

If it is, one or more icons that were present prior are causing an issue. Almost always, it is an icon that links to a network location that is not available at boot time. Other possibilities are icons that are linked to cloud drive services like OneDrive, DropBox, or Google Drive.

Start by moving those icons over, rebooting, and seeing if the issue persists. It would be a matter of moving one \ some over a bit at a time to eventually find the one \ group that is causing the conflict.

--

This totally f***ing fixed everything for me.  Must be a conflict with Onedrive syncing files and shortcuts over to my other computer.  Thanks guys!

I had the exact same icons on my desktop that I had before I upgraded hardware (my desktop is mapped to D: not C:\users).    Before the upgrade it was working.

No network icons.

However, moving all icons to a different folder and rebooting allowed Fences to install.

I just went through the folder file by file,  nothing network related.

Anyways, it's working now.

Very pleased to hear this, guys. Thanks for the update.

Sean Drohan
Stardock Product Lifecycle Manager