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I am using windows 10; a few days ago I started noticing my whole taskbar with my desktop icons plus desktop wallpaper to disappear (everything goes black) for about 5 seconds. then everything starting up again.

i was watching at my event log and around this time I can see the application "sihost.exe" causing an error.

should I remove sihost.exe? or is there another way to fix this problem? "sihost.exe" seems to be a original windows service - so I don't know.

update: I have also noticed that the startmenu stops working after the taskbar "restarted" itself.

update 2: Just noticed that the startmenu works again when I shutdown the restarted explorer.exe and start it again "manually".

thanks for any help!

northkildonan
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1 Answers1

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No, the SiHost.exe is an important Windows process which provides (with ShellExperienceHost.exe) the new shell (Startmenu, action center, volume changer). Deleting it would break the Windows Shell completely.

Capture a crash dump, zip and share the dmp file. I'll ask my Microsoft contacts for help.

magicandre1981
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  • thank you! as soon as i'll have the time to do it, i try to capture a crash dump. I am on a german windows 10 version if that's important. I've also noticed that the startmenu (by clicking on the windows icon) doesn't work after it all "restarted" itself. – northkildonan Mar 27 '16 at 19:48
  • i got a sihost.exe crah dump-zip here: http://www.filedropper.com/sihostexe8348 (~35 MB) and also a explorer.exe crash dump, explorer seems to immediately crash after sihost: http://www.filedropper.com/explorerexe1288 (~126 MB). – northkildonan Mar 28 '16 at 07:44
  • ok, I go both dumps. I've asked Microsoft for help. seams to be an issue with a notification which crashes the shell. – magicandre1981 Mar 28 '16 at 17:46
  • ok, thank you! do you know which type of notification causes the problem? and will you get further information? – northkildonan Mar 29 '16 at 12:07
  • no, I only see that the **Windows Push Notification Core** DLL (wpncore.dll) is involved in the Explorer crash – magicandre1981 Mar 29 '16 at 15:36
  • ok, the Explorer crash happens to more users. MS currently investigates it and tries to fix it. The sihost crash is extremely rare and here MS does nothing. try a different startmenu line StartIsBack++: http://superuser.com/a/946675/174557 – magicandre1981 Mar 30 '16 at 04:35
  • ok, thank you very much! will try another startmenu, but still hope for an windows-update that fixes this! – northkildonan Mar 30 '16 at 07:53
  • btw task manager's Processes tab has an interesting feature called "Analyze wait chain" that one can use to see what something frozen is waiting upon – George Birbilis Oct 30 '16 at 23:33