Windows Explorer restarted by Restart Manager on logon

[elliott94]

Hello.

I've just booted my machine, and after logging in heard the default sound that gets played when the computer is shut down. Obviously this isn't normal, so I checked the Event Viewer and found the following events.

Starting session 1 - ‎2012‎-‎06‎-‎03T09:12:20.323285600Z.

Shutting down application or service 'Windows Explorer'.

Restarting application or service 'Windows Explorer'.

Ending session 1 started ‎2012‎-‎06‎-‎03T09:12:20.323285600Z.

Has anyone else encountered this, and what does it mean? From a Google search, it looks like Restart Manager had to restart Explorer for some reason. I can't figure out why, though.

Thanks.

 

[CreepinJesus]

From this page (Restart Manager) it looks like Restart Manager may have been finishing off an update of some sort.

When were Windows Updates last run?

 

[elliott94]

Hi.

That does in deed look to be the most possible reason. I've never seen it before, however.

Acording to Windows Update, the last installed update was Definition Update for Windows Defender - KB915597 (Definition 1.127.1171.0), which was installed a day earlier.

What's interesting however, is that when I enitially boot my machine I notice that the TrustedInstaller.exe file usually starts a couple of minutes later, which is apparently part of windows Update. Does this simply run when Windows is actually checking for updates, but not necessarily installing them?

Thanks.

 

[CreepinJesus]

Just when installing, as far as I know. But I don't think it's just for Windows updates.

 

[Adolf]

I was experiencing exactly the same problem described by elliott94 in this thread, and am happy to report a solution. In my case it was DropBox, whose way of start up triggers this behavior on machines where user account control is switched on.

To solve the issue in case of DropBox change the link in Start|All Programs|Startup|Dropbox from
%USERPROFILE%\AppData\Roaming\Dropbox\bin\Dropbox.exe /systemstartup to %USERPROFILE%\AppData\Roaming\Dropbox\bin\Dropbox.exe
in that way you still get DropBox started, but without the restart manager for the explorer being triggered.

If in your case it is not DropBox you can identify the culprit in the following way:
Press WINDOWS_KEY+R type msconfig and hit enter. On the Startup tab disable all accept and reboot - you should no longer see the explorer re-start happening then, but now many things you might want will not have been started, now enable them back step by step and see which start up is causing your issues.

Hope this is still helpful for those that now run into the same problem.