BleepingComputer.com: Bizarre 3-way Explorer Crash

Here's my problem as nearly as I can figure it out. It involves three programs: Stardock Deskscapes, nVidia's GeForce Go 7600, and any game made by Steam. If I have Deskscapes installed, and run a Steam game, the video freaks out, tries to change to several different resolutions, then crashes Windows Explorer. If I uninstall Deskscapes, the problem goes away. If I have a static background but still have Deskscapes installed, the problem is still there. It sounds at this point like the problem is on Stardock's end.
However, if I run any other full-screen application, such as Doom3 or S.T.A.L.K.E.R. for instance, there is no problem. Updating video drivers, or even using hacked video drivers had no effect on the problem. Also, my system is x64.
I don't really know if anyone else has run into this. In the respective forums for each of the softwares involved, the general suggestion was to blame the other, and/or to stop using the other's software. As an American, I find the idea of not having everything I want when I want it unacceptable so I thought I'd bring this problem to neutral ground and see if anyone has any ideas.

Steam is a cranky piece of software IMO. Stardock is (IME) even crankier.

nVidia drivers (from the nVidia website) are very stable in most instances. If you get them elsewhere (even at Microsoft or at the computer/video card manufacturer's website) you're taking a chance. Hacked drivers are just that "hacked" - while some may swear by them I've never seen an obvious benefit to using them.

But other drivers can also affect this (as can hardware) especially if it's not x64 compatible.

Finally, I didn't see mention of problems when using Steam alone. If there aren't any, then it's obviously a Stardock problem IMO.

usasma, on May 28 2008, 04:47 PM, said:

Lemme make a chart:

Steam without stardock installed =
Stardock without Steam =
Stardock with everything else =
Steam with everything else =
Steam running with stardock installed (but not running) =
Stardock running with Steam installed (but not running) =

I'm kinda hoping it's not Stardock, because I really like Desktop Collage, there's nothing else like it, but Stardock is notorious for a complete absence of tech response.

usasma, on May 28 2008, 04:47 PM, said:

Answered separately because of how different the topics are.

I use "hacked" drivers because nVidia refuses to support my video card (GeForce Go 7600) for reasons I can't fathom, and HP's drivers on their website are more than a year old. laptopvideo2go.com takes existing unified drivers (which are supposed to work for all nVidia cards, but they selectively disable some cards, again for unknown reasons) and writes an .inf file that covers all laptop video cards. They've all worked just fine for me. In fact, the only time I've ever had a problem was when I downloaded some drivers from nVidia's website without double-checking to make sure my video card was listed.

You really can't know if it's Stardock or Steam without actually locating the error messages and tracking down the crash step-by-step. I would suspect that there's a component of Stardock still running even though you don't have it running - but that's just a guess on my part.

Have you checked your hard drive for files ending in .dmp? If you find one from around the time that explorer crashes use this link to generate an analysis of the crash: http://forums.majorgeeks.com/showthread.php?t=35246
This is primarily designed for helping with system crashes, but can be used with application crashes also. Just post the results of the analysis and we'll see what we can figure out.

Daiichi Kuronama - I'd forgotten the problems with drivers for certain nVidia GO cards. I usually don't recommend a hack because the hack wasn't designed as a part of the driver development process (this is because you need a "standard" environment to troubleshoot Windows issues). In the case of GO cards, I usually end up locating a system manufacturer's driver for the appropriate card and use that (despite it being outdated). I have tried the laptopvideo2go drivers and IMO they are well thought out, but I've had as many problems with them as I have with using the system manufacturer's drivers.

There's no graceful solution for this problem. I've read many, many posts about this and the most common solution offered is the laptopvideo2go drivers. I'm in the minority when I recommend the system manufacturer's drivers - but feel that it's a more standardized solution than the laptopvideo2go drivers. Just my 2¢