XYPlorer frequent "freezing" requiring a kill and restart

[John.JCAT]

A bit of info to set the stage: I run Windows 11 with a Windows ID that does not have the Windows Administrator privilege. I have a second ID defined on the system that HAS Administrator privilege and use this ID to authorize activities requiring Administrator privilege when they are needed in my non-Admin session. I seldom run a Windows login using the Administrator ID. I use Microsoft OneDrive extensively, with most of my file management activities involving OneDrive files (almost 62,000 files involving 136 GIGs) that are replicated locally on the disks of my PC (as well as several other PCs that I use from time to time.) I also use Google Drive (28,000 files, 100 GIGs) and Sync.Com (88,000 files, 226 GIGs), but less frequently. I use XYPlorer heavily and I LOVE it!

I use the XYPlorer "Catalog" facility to speed my access to the various folders.

Just for your interest sake...I run a 17-piece Big Band and am a member of a half-dozen other groups for which I have all the sheet music digitized, mostly as PDFs. I have over 19,000 files of sheet music incorporating over 45,000 pages, as PDFs, most of which I have scanned myself. XYPlorer really helps me manage these libraries of music!

However...one issue has been in existence for me for the past 6 months or more, and it is becoming more and more annoying. When I run XYPlorer under my non-Administrator Account while logged on to that account in Windows, I get frequent lockups or freezes of XYPlorer that require me to kill the XYplorer instance and restart it. The tabs that were open at the freeze (I often have more than a half-dozen tabs open for files that are in differing locations) are lost, so when I restart XYPlorer, I have to re-establish the locations in the tabs that I was working with.

I read awhile ago on the forum about the possibility that running XYPlorer as an Administrator might eliminate this freeze problem, so I have been using that. I don't like running my activities using Administrator privileges, but it has stopped the frequent freezing events. I still run my Windows session using my non-Administrator Windows ID, and just start up XYPlorer using "Run As...Administrator ID". I do NOT want to run all my Windows activities using an ID that has Administrator privileges due to the security exposures that it opens.

So, now running XYPlorer in my Non-Administrator Windows session while starting XYPlorer using "run As..." causes a different set of issues with XYPlorer.

First...a minor issue...The XYplorer environment and settings does not transfer across between my two Windows IDs. It just gets confusion when I make a configuration change under my non-admin ID and it doesn't appear when I start XYPlorer using Run As... my Admin ID.

Second...When I open a document using the XYPlorer Catalog facility, it runs the selected program under the environment of the Admin ID, so if the document handler program is not already running in my non-Admin session, Windows starts one up in the context of my Admin ID, which is often configured significantly differently than the context of my non-admin ID. BUT, if the document handler being used is already running in my non-Admin windows session using my non-Admin ID, Windows uses that instance to handle the document. It can be very confusing remembering which context I am running in.

Third...When I update a file using my non-Admin ID (using Photoshop or PDF-XChange or Excel for example) and then save it, the file does not appear as updated in the pane of the XYPlorer instance that is running using my Windows Admin ID. Files added "outside" the Admin XYPlorer context do not even show as having been added. I have to navigate the panel away from the folder of interest and then back to that folder.

I say again that I am extremely happy with the capabilities of XYPlorer and I would not be able to manage my extensive library without it, so please keep it up!


My suspicion is that the freezing has something to do with my extensive use of the "cloud" services, most likely Microsoft's OneDrive, but it could also be Google Drive or Sync.Com.

[highend]

So, now running XYPlorer in my Non-Administrator Windows session while starting XYPlorer using "run As..." causes a different set of issues with XYPlorer.

How _exactly_ do you call the admin-instance, via "Run as administrator" context menu?

It just gets confusion when I make a configuration change under my non-admin ID and it doesn't appear when I start XYPlorer using Run As... my Admin ID.

And the XY settings were saved before the run as instance was started?

it runs the selected program under the environment of the Admin ID

Yeah, that's how Windows works.
You could probably use a "run as user" exe and make entries for the custom file association to run them all without admin privileges

Run as user_x64.zip

(27.65 KiB) Downloaded 14 times

When I update a file using my non-Admin ID (using Photoshop or PDF-XChange or Excel for example) and then save it, the file does not appear as updated in the pane of the XYPlorer instance that is running using my Windows Admin ID. Files added "outside" the Admin XYPlorer context do not even show as having been added

I don't see this behaviour here. But the non-admin instance sees the changes that are made with the admin instance?

[RalphM]

I mostly run XY with a regular user role and have never experienced any freezes as you describe but two factors are very different on my end:
a) I don't use OneDrive
b) My file numbers are considerably lower than yours

My setup uses a startup.ini that points the data folder to a non-UAC protected location and thus my configuration is always saved to the same location no matter which user I am currently running. Never had a problem with this setup.