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TheIronDuke

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Context menu shell extension crashes Windows explorer

I created a x64 context menu shell extension in C++, which works fine when I right click a file or folder in the file list. But when I right click on a directory in the directory tree on the left Windows Explorer crashes, with no error details.

Any idea what can cause this to happen only in the directory tree?
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Zoppo
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Hi TheIronDuke,

no, I have no idea, but I'm sure it crash's because there's some error in your shell-extension - so IMO you need to debug it.

To do this you need to change the project's Debug-Settings and enter 'explorer.exe' as 'command path'.

Unfortunateley this doesn't work (because calling explorer.exe doesn't usually start a new process) without one of these extra steps:

- you can shutdown the currently running explorer.exe, then start debugging, this should start explorer.exe again - after you finished debugging you'll have to re-start explorer.exe manually to re-activate your desktop and taskbar.
- configure system settings to allow using multiple explorer.exe processes - you can find how this can be done in the section 'Running and Testing Shell Extensions' at https://msdn.microsoft.com/de-de/library/windows/desktop/cc144064(v=vs.85).aspx

I hope this helps,

ZOPPO
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TheIronDuke

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Thanks, but I have been debugging. It has not shown a logical cause. The question is; why does right clicking on a file or directory on the file list side (right side) work just fine, but right clicking on the directory tree on the left crashes. What is different about the two? I thought they would both work the same way in a context menu handler.

I really need some insight here.
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Only one response, which really did not address the problem. I know I have to debug the app. I was looking for some help, but did not get it. So I found the solution myself.