Starting dopus

When I click the icon, dopus will usually start. Not any longer. Nothing happens, neither if I double-click nor right-click and click on Open.
There are two ways I can start dopus:

    • Start as Administrator with extra bother > "Will you allow dopus to make changes to your system?" Now dopus works (as administrator).

2.- Re-install dopus. Now dopus works normally. However, if I shut down my laptop and start it anew, I have either to use no.1 or no. 2 solution (described above).

nkm

Assuming Explorer Replacement is turned on, if you double-click a folder on the desktop, does Opus open then?

Or if you launch Opus a second time, does it open?

If you look in Task Manager, is there a dopus.exe?

Note that if you run dopus.exe elevated (as Administrator), most of the desktop will not be able to talk to it to ask it to open a new window. So if it is already running elevated in the background, that may be the cause of the problem. More detail on that here: Why NOT to run Opus as Administrator under UAC

Your first item: Nothing happens.
Your second item: No
Your third item: Yes.

If I stop all (three dopus items in the task manager) and then click the dopus icon. Now dopus works normally! Perhaps that's the way to live on with dopus. I would hate to live without dopus!!!
nkm

What are the three items? There would normally be a dopusrt.exe and a dopus.exe.

When the problem is happening, does Task Manager say any of them are elevated? None of the processes should be elevated, and if they are then that's the problem.

(To check that, go to Task Manager's Details tab, right-click the column header and choose Select Columns, then turn on the Elevated column. It should say "No" for all dopus.exe/dopusrt.exe processes.)

dopusrt.exe and dopus.exe are there. and also dopus helper something. But right now it is working impeccably, so I have to wait until it goes wrong again.
Your thorough description in the parenthesis should be helpful, but as my laptop is setup in Danish I find it hard sometimes to localize the English equivalent. This time it goes wrong at "right-click the column header and choose Select Columns..." I can't (by trial and error) find an Elevated column. But again, dopus works normally right now. So I shall have to wait till next Administrator "session" - unfortunately.
nkm

Be sure to notice that the instructions for an Elevated column are for Task Manager, not Opus.

I think that the best way to solve my problem with dopus is to forget to solve the problem as described. It returns irregularly and I can't find what causes it. So whenever I appears that it won't start except as administrator, I just re-install dopus. Then everything works ok for about another week or so.
I refuse to give up dopus, can't live without it =:-O
nkm

If you have to keep reinstalling Opus to get it to start*, something else on your system is breaking either the binaries (EXE and DLL files) or something in the registry. I would suspect a "registry cleaner" type tool, which usually cause more harm than good.

(*Unless it will start via some method and not others. That could be something like antivirus killing or blocking dopusrt.exe from starting, which we've seen happen.)

To be safe I don't use registry cleaners. I have done that with catastrophic results.
Do you really think that Norton 360 really is the culprit? I shall have that possibility in my mind next time. Thank you for your trouble.
nkm

Antivirus can block things from launching, so it's one possibility.

Is it definitely the problem? No. We don't know enough to say that.

It depends a lot on which method(s) of launching Opus are working and not working, since they depend on different mechanisms. For example:

  • Desktop double-click depends on dopusrt.exe being there. We've seen Windows Defender block it from starting when Windows boots, for whatever crazy reason Windows Defender decided to do that.

  • Explorer Replacement depends on various registry settings and some COM DLL components as well. If something's messing with registry settings, those could break until Opus is installed again, which fixes the registry settings.

  • Running dopus.exe from the taskbar or start menu doesn't depend on much, unless something fundamental is broken or being blocked on the system, or unless the shortcuts there point to the wrong place (i.e. the program files have been moved). That's a good thing to test if other things don't work.

  • (For completeness, although it's mentioned above already: Lots of things will be unable to launch Opus if dopus.exe is already running elevated, since non-elevated processes cannot talk to elevated ones.)