While allowing Bandlab and Cakewalk apps to update last night I received the following error message popup - 

"Access denied. Explorer.exe is in use and can not be modified." There was also what appeared to be a string of hex, possibly a memory address?

Cakewalk itself will load and works normally if I start it manually, but the Bandlab app is broken totally now. If I try to load it Windows pops up an error message that the app is invalid or has been moved and can not be found. So obviously Bandlab will need to be reinstalled, but what is going on with the attempt to modify Explorer.exe? Anyone else had this issue? I ran a full drive check for viruses/malware using my Linux install, came up clean, and this particular DAW is offline pretty much 24/7 except for  when I allow checks for updates/reauth. of software. 

Anyone? 

Relax, the installer is not attempting to modify explorer.exe. More likely, it's just trying to overwrite an existing file that's open. Try rebooting and then re-running the install. If the message pops up again, try to capture it (or at least write it down) and post the exact message here.

First off, I am totally relaxed. In just over 30 years of running Windows based PCs this is hardly the first time a badly written program has tried to access/modify a system file it should not be. Second, why would the Bandlab app be trying to modify files that do not belong to it, (would think that the Bandlab program updater would ensure all Bandlab files are closed prior to updating)? Third, if the file it was trying to overwrite was something else, Windows would not have thrown the error that Explorer.exe could not be modified, it would have listed the actual file in question, (that is one of the things Microsoft finally got right with Windows error messages a few versions back). Finally, the total error message was exactly what I posted - "Access denied. Explorer.exe is in use and can not be modified.", followed by a 12 digit hex string that was most likely a memory address, and which ran out of the actual error message window, meaning there was most likely more that was not visible. Not much help there. 

What OS do you have?  I have Win 10 Pro (latest version) and never saw that message.

fireberd
What OS do you have?  I have Win 10 Pro (latest version) and never saw that message.

 10 Home on that machine. Also the first time I've ever seen that error on any version of Windows. Seen plenty of "File is open in..." errors, but never explorer.exe itself, that's pretty much always open anyway.

The entire text of the error message should be in your Windows logs, perhaps along with additional information such as the actual caller that triggered the error. 

Are you using AV software? It is very unlikely that that message is being thrown by the Cakewalk installer and its not trying to write explorer.exe. Its likely a spurious message caused by something else going wrong.

Noel Borthwick [Cakewalk]
Are you using AV software? It is very unlikely that that message is being thrown by the Cakewalk installer and its not trying to write explorer.exe. Its likely a spurious message caused by something else going wrong.

On this machine only the built-in Windows Defender, it's not online enough for me to worry much about picking up a virus/malware. It wasn't the Cakewalk installer though, but the Bandlab app updater that triggered the error. I'm going to clean out whatever is left of the corrupted Bandlab app install, then try reinstalling and see what happens.

bitflipper
The entire text of the error message should be in your Windows logs, perhaps along with additional information such as the actual caller that triggered the error. 

Very good point... Didn't even consider taking a look for more info there. I'll take a look and see what I can find.

So, after a lot of digging around I think I tracked down the issue to a conflict between the Bandlab app, and the Roland Cloud Manager app, though I have no idea which one is not playing nice with the other. Or, if it's a combination of both apps misbehaving, along with something else on this particular machine. What seems to happen is if both apps are running, and both are downloading/updating at the same time, something is becoming corrupted somewhere, and the Bandlab app goes down in flames. If however I disable Roland Cloud auto-update, and wait until Bandlab is finished doing its thing, everything works normally with no errors. So the lesson to be learned it seems is do not allow both apps to start up and download/install updates at the same time. (duh!) Still, just to be on the safe side, I think a clean reinstall of Windows 10, is called for here... best to start fresh.