Working with the Windows shell and extensions

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Field Notes

Working with the Windows shell and extensions

By Tracey Capen A recent failure of Windows 10’s power menus is eventually traced to an incompatible shell extension. Also: AV-Comparatives posts its latest report on 19 popular anti-malware applications — but not Malwarebytes.

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The full text of this column is posted at windowssecrets.com/top-story/working-with-the-windows-shell-and-extensions/ (opens in a new window/tab).

Columnists typically cannot reply to comments here, but do incorporate the best tips into future columns.

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Apparently your screen shot of CCleaner >> Tools/Startup is from an older version. There are two relevant windows now. The basic window just shows Windows. To see the window with browsers such as Firefox, you need to click Tools/Browser Plugins

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Apparently your screen shot of CCleaner >> Tools/Startup is from an older version. There are two relevant windows now. The basic window just shows Windows. To see the window with browsers such as Firefox, you need to click Tools/Browser Plugins

Good point. The version in the newsletter screen shot is 30 months and 31 versions out-of-date. Lousy example.

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Malwarebytes is excellent – I use the PRO version.
Could it be that these testing firms don’t categorize Malwarebytes as a “full” AV program? It is often considered a “supplementary” program that can run besides the “full” programs. (But often it finds things the “full” programs don’t!).

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I’ve contacted Malawarebytes as a result of comments in this newsletter that it can be used as an antivirus app. The company said it can’t be used that way; a regular antivirus app is needed along with it. Maybe that’s why it wasn’t tested.

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“how tested products fair” should be “how tested products fare”

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Next was the somewhat tedious process of enabling extensions, one at a time, and testing

I see this approach mentioned a lot, even by Fred Langa iirc. There’s a much faster way for anything like this.

Say you have 32 different suspects to test, eg browser extensions. If you do like Tracey, ‘one at a time’, it’ll take an average of 16 tests to find the culprit, and as many as 31 if you’re unlucky. The faster way:

Test the top 16–ie disable the bottom 16. This tells you which half of your suspects contains the culprit. Now test half of those, ie 8 suspects–now you’ve narrowed it down to one or other group of 8 suspects. Test 4 of these 8, then 2 of the resulting 4 suspects, and finally the final 2 suspects.

5 tests required.

Lugh.
~
Alienware Aurora R6; Win10 Home x64 1803; Office 365 x32
i7-7700; GeForce GTX 1060; 16GB DDR4 2400; 1TB SSD, 256GB SSD, 4TB HD

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On the AV ratings, I find it interesting that Norton wasn’t included either.

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On the AV ratings, I find it interesting that Norton wasn’t included either.

Symatic Norton is covered as a single product item here:
http://www.av-comparatives.org/single-product-reviews-tests/

Jerry

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Every couple of years, Neil Rubenking at pcmag.com tests Malwarebytes Anti-Malware. Here’s the last tests from 2014:

http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2455505,00.asp

http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2455577,00.asp

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Every couple of years, Neil Rubenking at pcmag.com tests Malwarebytes Anti-Malware. Here’s the last tests from 2014:

http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2455505,00.asp

http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2455577,00.asp

I can’t see much value in tests that are 2.5 years old.:confused:

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I had the same problem as you on the laptop I’m typing on now. I cleaned up my context menu items, and followed every single suggestion out there short of nuking Windows. I finally dealt with it by installing Classic Start Menu. Perhaps after eventually doing the anniversary update I’ll revisit the situation. However, I had not realized that CCleaner had that tool; it is a lot simpler then Nirsoft’s. Also, I’ve never been loaded up with malware the way I often do when installing Nirsoft products.

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Also, I’ve never been loaded up with malware the way I often do when installing Nirsoft products.

I’ve been using Nirsoft utilities for nearly 10 years and not once have I ever had any malware attached.

Just make sure you get his products directly from the Nirsoft website, not from one of the numerous dodgy websites that re-package his products with cr*p.

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The problem is that clicking on a link on their website takes you to another site for the download. And whatever that site is bundles it with cr-pware that doesn’t even offer a prompt for whether the add-ons should be installed, so afterwards you have to try and find and try and remove all the garbage that came with it. At least in my experience.

I see this approach mentioned a lot, even by Fred Langa iirc. There’s a much faster way for anything like this.

Say you have 32 different suspects to test, eg browser extensions. If you do like Tracey, ‘one at a time’, it’ll take an average of 16 tests to find the culprit, and as many as 31 if you’re unlucky. The faster way:

Test the top 16–ie disable the bottom 16. This tells you which half of your suspects contains the culprit. Now test half of those, ie 8 suspects–now you’ve narrowed it down to one or other group of 8 suspects. Test 4 of these 8, then 2 of the resulting 4 suspects, and finally the final 2 suspects.

5 tests required.

I’ve been using Nirsoft utilities for nearly 10 years and not once have I ever had any malware attached.

Just make sure you get his products directly from the Nirsoft website, not from one of the numerous dodgy websites that re-package his products with cr*p.

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The problem is that clicking on a link on their website takes you to another site for the download. And whatever that site is bundles it with cr-pware that doesn’t even offer a prompt for whether the add-ons should be installed, so afterwards you have to try and find and try and remove all the garbage that came with it. At least in my experience.

The Nirsoft website hosts its own downloads and has done since 2004.

If you are getting re-directed elsewhere to download Nirsoft utilities then I suggest you check your device(s) using something like Malwarebytes Anti-Malware and one or more reputable AV programs, ‘cos something isn’t right.

PS – There are a few ancilliary downloads that re-direct to third-party sites but these are optional network-related datasets and drivers, e.g. the GeoLite City database used to enhance CurrPorts, the WinPcap Capture Driver used with SmartSniff, the IpToCountry.csv used to enhance TcpLogView, a MAC addresses database file (oui.txt) used with Wireless Network Watcher. However, all these are well-established and direct downloads from their own respective websites, not from dodgy re-packagers.

Hope this helps…

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Also, I’ve never been loaded up with malware the way I often do when installing Nirsoft products.

I don’t know what actually happened to you. Are you sure you actually got malware? Though it’s never happened to me, I’ve read that some anti-malware/anti-virus tools flag Nirsoft tools as (possible) malware simply because the tools are are making somewhat low level changes to the OS. Sort of a Catch 22 as that’s usually what the tools are intended to do and why they are wanted.

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I owe people – including Nirsoft, an apology – I confused them with a different site. Big oops on my part; it is that other site that links to cr-pware adding downloads.

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I owe people – including Nirsoft, an apology – I confused them with a different site. Big oops on my part; it is that other site that links to cr-pware adding downloads.

Thanks for acknowledging that. It would have been easy to just fade into the background.

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When I screw up… I try to own up to my mistakes!

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It looks like I am the only one having a Start button context menu problem.

I clean-installed Win10 1511. Soon after, when I tried Start button context menu Power>Shut down, the computer would just sit there. To make a long story short, I found in the Event Viewer that the computer was taking about 5 minutes before it began the shut down process.

This week, AU (1607) dropped onto the computer. This problem persists. However, if I use Start>Power>Shut down, there is no delay before the shut down process begins. It is quite quick to shut down, too. Also, I had added a shortcut to shutdown.exe with the -s and -t switches prior to AU dropping in. It, too, had no noticeable delays.

sfc /scannow has found no integrity errors.

Rereading this article, I have to troubleshoot shell extensions to see if any of them may be the source of this issue especially since it is only the context menu method that I have having a problem with.

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A laptop of mine (1 of 4 Win 10 PC’s I take care of) had lost all use of the right click start menu (winx) after a Win10 update months ago, and a huge amount of troubleshooting went nowhere. I finally added classic start to deal with it.

This laptop made an unannounced upgrade to WA a few days ago (all I saw ahead of time was a normal monthly update) and when I got into it, found the above problem had disappeared along with classic start. I did get a notice about that saying it wasn’t compatible. I then reinstalled gadgets and the old Win 7 games (had to find a new distro of the latter) and used UWT to force display of the version on the desktop, and am now using 10 AU a lot happier then what I had before.

Weird things happen sometimes with updates! Some good, some bad.

It looks like I am the only one having a Start button context menu problem.

I clean-installed Win10 1511. Soon after, when I tried Start button context menu Power>Shut down, the computer would just sit there. To make a long story short, I found in the Event Viewer that the computer was taking about 5 minutes before it began the shut down process.

This week, AU (1607) dropped onto the computer. This problem persists. However, if I use Start>Power>Shut down, there is no delay before the shut down process begins. It is quite quick to shut down, too. Also, I had added a shortcut to shutdown.exe with the -s and -t switches prior to AU dropping in. It, too, had no noticeable delays.

sfc /scannow has found no integrity errors.

Rereading this article, I have to troubleshoot shell extensions to see if any of them may be the source of this issue especially since it is only the context menu method that I have having a problem with.

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@pbug56,

Win10 AU is notorious for “uninstalling” things like Classic Start as well as undoing many user tweaks and customization such as resetting my default web browser and email client.

I had only done my clean install of 1511 less than 2 weeks ago. Therefore, I was surprised when, unannounced other than the alert that updates were ready to be installed, AU was installed.

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Interesting that the anniversary update removed Classic Start. I had never heard of Classic Start, but have now found it.

My only (maybe) interesting comment here is that I use the start menu replacement of Classic Shell and don’t recall the the anniversary update removing it. It’s not impossible that Classic Shell got removed and I reinstalled it, but I don’t remember doing that.

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Odd. On one PC I had a warning of feature update – just after I did regular updates. Another one had ‘updates’ pending; I came back to it the next morning and AU was on it. A third I did with the media downloader and a DVD. I did get a warning about Classic Start; I only had it because of the START right click problem. It’s nice, but I’m happy without it when the right click works normally.

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Interestingly, prior to delving into the Windows shell and extension, I tried at least twice Start button Context Menu Power>Shut down and it has worked as expected. Go figure. :rolleyes:

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Interestingly, prior to delving into the Windows shell and extension, I tried at least twice Start button Context Menu Power>Shut down and it has worked as expected. Go figure. :rolleyes:

I can only speculate. Ever since AU update installed, each time I use the Start button context menu “Shut down or sign out>Shut down”, my computer shuts down promptly. My speculation is that the AU update was downloading in the background. When I went to shut down, the pause I was experiencing may have been the download “gracefully” pausing before allowing the shut down to proceed.

My recommendation is to not update from any of the pre-Win10 OS’s. Instead, download the ISO by whichever mean you choose–Microsoft Media Creation Tool or the complete ISO from other sources–and do a clean install. I suspect many of the headaches folks are having will be avoided.:coffeetime:

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