How exactly does Explorer.exe work?

[Adrena1in]

Here's my situation: I have a backend application running in an Internet Explorer window over a Citrix farm. The application, (LANDesk), has a File Transfer button which should open a File Explorer window. This used to be fine.

About 3 or 4 months ago a user noticed that when he clicked on File Transfer, instead of a File Explorer window opening, a blank Desktop opened and an error appeared.

The command that LANDesk issues is "explorer.exe /e,/idlist,%I,%L" - this is in the Registry in HKCR\Folder\Shell\Open\Command.

I've discovered that if you open Task Manager and kill your explorer.exe process so Desktop disappears, then run a new task and put "explorer.exe", your Desktop reappears. Run "explorer.exe" again and File Explorer appears.

This seems to be what's happening now in LANDesk, but does anyone know why it would have started going wrong? Does anyone know of a Windows or IE hotfix that might be causing this? I think a cumulative patch might have been installed shortly before this problem appeared, but it wasn't something I was involved in.

If someone else experienced something similar to this after installing a hotfix then I'd love to hear from you.

Thanks,
Tim.

 

[sysadmin123]

explorer.exe is the program that runs the gui shell known as your desktop. Without it running you wouldn't have a desktop/start menu/taskbar etc.

Could be corrupt. I haven't expierenced this so someone else would need to chime in there.

 

[Adrena1in]

Thanks Sysadmin123. My problem lies with the fact that the LANDesk application runs in an IE window over a Citrix Session...there is no Desktop GUI. The File Transfer feature of LANDesk runs the Explorer.exe command to open File Explorer, but it doesn't work...it opens a Desktop on the Citrix Session instead. (The NEXT time you click on File Transfer is DOES open File Explorer. However, when you close down the LANDesk session, you have to manually log off the blank Desktop too, which is annoying.)

Cheers anyway.