Dropbox installs & integrations
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System: Windows 10 Home x64
Dropbox verson: 79.4.143
Hello everyone,
First off, thank you in advance to whoever responds here. I appreciate any and all answers.
I’m new to Dropbox, I had heard of it all throughout high school but never needed to install it. Now that I’m in university, I’ve realized the importance of syncable folders to keep up to date with all of my files. I went ahead and installed Dropbox just now and experienced some odd behavior.
After I ran DropboxInstaller.exe, it pulled up a short dialog window explaining how it was going to download the actual install files, then once those files were downloaded, it proceeded to install. Windows UAC eventually popped up and asked for permission to make changes (normal for installations that require Admin priveliges). So far so good, right?
Wrong. Soon after, the strangest thing happened. My entire desktop screen flashed— the bottom taskbar and all the icons disappeared for a second, and then re-appeared. It was as if the Dropbox installation had crashed my PC’s explorer.exe and then manually restarted it.
When the bottom taskbar finally appeared (the area that houses the Windows Start Button and all of the tray icons, etc.), I selected “Show hidden icons” on the bottom right area of the task bar. Sure enough, all of my apps were beginning to load up anew as if I had restarted my computer—further confirming that explorer.exe was restarted. Is any of this normal behavior when installing Dropbox for the first time?
This can’t be right... why would Dropbox need to crash and restart my PC’s explorer.exe. Now I’m worried about a potential malware infection in the download (I did download it directly from the Dropbox website).
Please advise and thank you in advance.
Solved! Go to Solution.
Yes, that's all normal. It's not crashing Explorer; it's restarting it. When that happens, you'll momentarily lose your desktop, taskbar and all icons.
The installer makes changes that won't take affect until after Explorer is restarted (registry changes for the icon overlays, etc.). A full restart of the computer isn't needed; just Explorer.
Yes, that's all normal. It's not crashing Explorer; it's restarting it. When that happens, you'll momentarily lose your desktop, taskbar and all icons.
The installer makes changes that won't take affect until after Explorer is restarted (registry changes for the icon overlays, etc.). A full restart of the computer isn't needed; just Explorer.
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