Cannot Install Fences 4 - Win11 22H2

also attempted purge and clean boot with no change in behavior

What 22h2 image did you use. Was it off of Microsoft's site?

Enterprise deployed image & update payload

If I understand you correctly? You are using a work computer that receives updates through your IT department. If so that will be a much trickier fix

If it is your own personal computer, however, then I would recommend updating to 23h2

yes these are work computers with corporate images but I do have installer rights (Stardock installers are trusted via our IT department).  

Also - silent installations also fail

The installers themselves may still be trusted. But if new security measures have been implemented such as not allowing explorer.exe extensions to be executed that would prevent both fences and groupy from being installed. Unfortunately, I believe that this is most likely a case that your IT department may need to fix.

I don't have explorer extensions to be executed.  My Fences 4 installation worked (and continues to work) when installed on 21H2 and then updated to 22H2.  Just launching the installer exe crashes out.  The Installer EXE can't even get to the UI level.  No errors or logs generated (Event Viewer, etc) 

Hello,
Sorry to hear you are having issues. Just to be sure, the system is not on ARM base CPU, yes?

Thank you,

Basj,
Stardock Community Assistant

Correct, these are Intel x86 CPUs

Apologies hamlinda. Let me try and explain myself a little better

I believe your version of 22h2 is the November 2023 release version. To my knowledge, all Stardock software had / has full compatibility with that release version of Windows 11. Therefore I do not believe 22h2 in of itself is the culprit.

Fences and groupy are the explorer.exe extensions I was previously talking about. That is how they work, they hook onto explorer.exe and function as an extension. If for example, the IT department felt tampering with explorer.exe or certain registry values caused exploits in their security they would figure out a way to modify Windows 11 22h2 so that it doesnt happen. After 22h2 is modified they would repackage the Windows 11 22h2 install in a way they deem is safe.

It is always possible that I may be wrong as it does sometimes happen, but I do feel asking the IT department may be worth it just in case I am right.

@PhoenixRising1 - appreciate the feedback so all is good   

I don't think there is anything intrinsically wrong with the OS version, nor the app, but there is definitely something amiss with the integration of the two in the environment I'm working on.  The concern that I have is that the UI is not launching during the *install* app of Groupy2/Fences4/5.  I would expect that app to launch before laying down core services, etc.  Since it's quickly crashing out, I think there is something in the installation wrapper (far too long of experience in this area) that is triggering a failure off of some system variable and dropping out.  if there was a way to collect logs for quick debug, that would help all sides. 

Also - I do have a request to our IT team, but it is a large corp so the turnaround is less than ideal, hence great collaboration here  

Hello,

This guide might help you: https://forums.stardock.com/486311/accounts-and-activation-support-faq#Ransomware

Thank you,

Basj,
Stardock Community Assistant

@basj - looking into this with our IT department.  is there a switch which will enable logging in the installer file that we can verify that installer is failing due to this setting?  would be very helpful for debug to have the installer provide feedback accordingly

I am sorry, I am not much of technical guy, however, 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.

Basj,
Stardock Community Assistant

Update on this: 

Talked to our IT department and they indicated that they didn't know why it was failing due to lack of feedback from the installer.  That being said, I had a separate engagement which required me to install an unsigned installer app on my system for which they gave me temp admin rights (time bound entry into Administrators group of local machine) and I tried to install Fences again and it succeeded. 

So it appears the installer requires that the user executing the install.exe is in the Administrator group vs. virtual elevation (we use BeyondTrust for this).  Can we get this feedback/request into the product team for backlog evaluation? 

I was a bit perplexed why this changed for you with 22h2 vs 21h2 so I looked at the 22h2 changelog. My best guess here is that credential guard may be the culprit. Only the windows 11 enterprise version has this turned on by default so most Windows 11 users are not using it. If this is in fact the case you will probably always need admin rights to install stardock software as credential guard is enabled.

Disclaimer, this is only a guess but I do hope it helps the developers of stardock software.

I am glad you got it all figured out by the way!