Recently, a customer reported that after upgrading from Design Review 2009 to Design Review 2010, launching Design Review 2010 didn't seem to launch, even though DesignReview.exe appeared in the Task Manager's Processes tab. Design Review Lead Engineer Dony Chen suggested that there may be an application compatibility issue in the registry.
Here’s the solution he provided to the customer:
- Open the Windows Registry Editor (regedit.exe)
- Navigate to "HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\AppCompatFlags\Layers". *
- In the Registry Editor's right pane, locate and delete Explorer.exe and DesignReview.exe. (If necessary, click Yes to confirm each deletion.)
- Next, navigate to "HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\AppCompatFlags\Layers".
- In the Registry Editor's right pane, again, locate and delete Explorer.exe and DesignReview.exe. (If necessary, click Yes to confirm each deletion.)
- Exit the Registry Editor.
- Restart the computer.
*Note: If the keys are not in the registry, application compatibility isn’t the issue.
Warning!
Problems caused by improperly editing the Windows registry could render your computer operating system unusable. Microsoft has provided a wealth of critical information you need to know about the registry in the Microsoft Knowledge Base at http://support.microsoft.com/support.
Use the Microsoft® Registry Editor only at your own risk and only after backing up the registry as well as the system.dat and user.dat files as outlined in ARTICLE-ID: Q132332 "How to Back Up the Registry" in the Microsoft Knowledge Base. Additional information about the registry is also contained in the Help topics in the Microsoft Registry Editor.