XYplorer Beta Club

I've been using XYplorer on my desktop for years (Windows 7) and recently put it on my netbook (HP Pavillion 360, Windows 10). On the netbook XYplorer starts and works, but all other programs (apps) stop working, it's almost like the computer is otherwise locked. I can't switch between programs, but if I stop XYplorer, the other programs start working again. I looked through the FAQ's and found the one about creating an exception for XYplorer for Windows Defender, which I did, but the problem persists. When I installed XYplorer on the netbook it was version 17.90, I updated to version 18.0 and the problem continues. As it stands right now, I can't use XYplorer on the netbook.

XY can do a lot but it can't stop other programs from working. Nothing should be able to do that under Windows. So: Are you sure?

"stop working" was the wrong term

It seems that the other programs are running, the problem is that I can't get to them. The XYplorer window stays visible and I can't use the various means I usually use to get to other programs. E.g., clicking on a file in XYplorer doesn't open the appropriate window (e.g., Libre Office) even if the program is already running, alt-tab won't take me between programs, and clicking on the icon in the taskbar doesn't work. I can't even open task manager to shut down XYplorer. Once I shut down XYplorer (with the box in the upper right), various windows from other programs open indicating that the program was working, just not accessible. Hope this is clearer.

Also pretty strange. Can you do anything with XYplorer? E.g. press F9 to open Configuration?

I can highlight files and things like that, but can't execute them. I tried pushing F9 and that didn't work, but I could go across the menu to Tools, find the command for opening configuration, scroll down, open configuration and rummage through it (see the attached screenshot)

The attached screenshot provides some documentation. As you can see, I could go down to the toolbar and bring up the 'preview' (?) for the task manager, but I couldn't actually get the task manager window to open -- and then I couldn't get the 'preview' to go away.

To make things more complicated, I can get one other window to open after the first time I start XYplorer, but then this problem of freezing happens. For example, in the session shown in the screenshot, I had started XYplorer and then managed to get Firefox to open, but then when I went back to XYplorer, I then couldn't go further. In an earlier session, I had managed to get task manager to open as the first window and saw that there's no memory problem related to running XYplorer.

Thanks, by the way, for your attention to this. I once was a 'computer nerd' but that was before Windows existed, so I'm slow on working things like this out now. But, you're helping me think through it.

This all sounds totally weird. Did you already reboot Windows?

I've seen this behavior as well but very seldom. Rebooting always fixed it for me

I reboot often, so that shouldn't be it. BUT, I rebooted today and the netbook was running fine with XYplorer till I started taskmanager. I had to do a ctrl-alt-del reboot, which then popped up with a 'vcruntime140.dll missing' error. I'm going to fix that and then see how things work.