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Hello!
I am running Windows Server 2019 and after a couple of hours with the machine running, explorer.exe just stops working, I've tried restarting the service but everytime I do, I get: "The operating system version is not compatible with this product", I have to reboot the computer to fix it but then again, after a couple of hours it all happens again.
The server keeps working, it AD DS, DNS, DHCP, Remote Desktop, it all keeps working just fine but, since the explorer.exe service is not working, I can't do much on the server, I have seen a few possible solutions and I have tried them but they were all for Windows 7.
Since this is a operating server, I can't do a clean installation or just reboot it everytime.
Thanks in advance.
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I'm seeing the same behaviour on Server 2019.
Previous commenters seem to have assumed the RDS role is installed when the OP simply states is that Remote Desktop is still working, which I would take to mean they are able to invoke a remote session as an administrator, which you would expect to be able to do whether or not the RDS role is installed.
On my machine (headless) I started seeing odd rendering behaviour in the remote desktop taskbar for a few days - it would take a very long time before it would render any taskbar icons, i.e. over 15 seconds, then they would suddenly appear.
Today, I connected to my session and the taskbar would not render at all. On closing the last of a few Explorer shell windows I had running, the main Explorer.exe process terminated, removing all windows elements from the display and then it showed the above error, i.e. "The operating system version is not compatible with this product".
Cont...
All other processes in the session are still running as before, and I can log in as a different administrator and create a remote session just fine; it is solely the first session where Explorer seems to have lost its marbles.
Anyway, I signed out the first session via Task Manager in the second session, and was able to reconnect via the first login once more.
I suspect the issues I was seeing stemmed from connecting remotely from several different terminals, all with different display resolutions and desktop scaling settings, as the issue seemed to progressively become worse when connecting from a new terminal.
I don't have a solution but my suspicions point immediately to the remote session host. Microsoft has apparently never managed to get this entirely bug free and it exhibits a new kind of odd behaviour with every new version.
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tried restarting the service
What service are you asking about? What roles are installed? Also check here and with manufacturer about support for the hardware.
https://www.windowsservercatalog.com/
--please don't forget to Accept as answer if the reply is helpful--
Thank you for the quick reply, the service I'm asking about is the explorer.exe (I'm sorry if it's not a service and I ended up confusing you or any other reader), as for the roles installed, DNS, DHCP, AD DS and Remote Desktop Services.
I'd check that the hardware has support for Server 2019. Also installing RDS role on domain controller is a security risk. Has it been patched fully? At what point did the problem occur?
Hardware: Intel Xeon E3-1225 v5 @3.30GHz
16 GB RAM
1 TB HDD
I didn't know it was a security risk for RDS to be installed on a DC, sorry.
How can I know if it has been fully patched?
This has been going on for a little more than a week.
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Found the issue. The explorer.exe is system32 was courpt there was another explorer.exe in the windows folder which was working, i just copy the file from the windows folder to the system32 folder and problem was solve.
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Thank you! This was much more helpful than the so called accepted answer
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I found this answer helpful thanks a lot
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Solved, thanks!!!
Hardware: Intel Xeon E3-1225 v5 @3.30GHz
16 GB RAM
1 TB HDD
This tells us nothing really. Some requirements listed here.
https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-server/get-started-19/sys-reqs-19
but better to confirm with server manufacturer or possibly here.
https://www.windowsservercatalog.com/
I didn't know it was a security risk for RDS to be installed on a DC, sorry.
Another better option here is to install Server 2019 with hyper-v role (as only role) on host, then stand up two virtual machine guests. One for active directory domain services and other for RDS / application server.
How can I know if it has been fully patched?
Simply turn on automatic updates, or also check the latest SSU and cumulative update have been installed.
https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/help/4464619
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Explorer.exe should be only located in c:\Windows and not c:\Windows\System32. If you had an Explorer.exe in the System32 directory, it could be an outdated or otherwise malicious version. Since both c:\Windows and c:\Windows\System32 directories are both set as System Variable entries, when Explorer.exe is autostarted by task scheduler at logon, it is most likely trying to run the copy inside the System32 directory instead.
You should remove the copy of Explorer.exe from the System32 directory and make sure it is only in the c:\Windows\ directory.
Of course, you may just have a bad copy of Explorer.exe inside c:\Windows, which you should replace with a backup or other machine, then run DISM and SFC scans with reboots in between and after to verify and rebuild system files.