Who is this article for?

Users experiencing shell extension issues.

IT Administrator permissions may be required for some steps.

Mail Manager (MM) includes a shell extension to Windows File Manager. This adds the "Send Mail Manager Link" and "Copy Mail Manager Link" options in the context menu, when selecting an item. 

In the latest Windows versions you also need to select the Show More options to see this, by default as displays a different context menu at first, unless that extra menu is disabled.

This article covers troubleshooting steps for this.

1. Troubleshooting items not appearing

We recommend following the troubleshooting steps below in order.

Restarting the PC

There have been reports that if this is rolled out through group policy that these may not show up until the system has been restarted 3 or 4 times.

Restarting File Explorer

Doing this can be done by opening Task Manager and finding File Manager in the main view or Explorer.exe in the details view and restarting this process.

If ending the explorer.exe task or it doesn't come back, you can select the option to run from the drop down menu or holding Windows and R, and then typing Explorer.exe to get this to come back. 

Event Viewer

Is anything recorded in the Windows event viewer about this? You may need to restart File Explorer, as mentioned above, to see if anything is recorded about this at that time.

To check Event Viewer:

1. Open Start.
2. Look for Event Viewer.
3. Expand Windows logs.
4. Look in Application, Security, Setup and System for anything logged that mentions File Explorer, Shell or Mail Manager, etc.

Windows Security

Is there anything recorded in Windows Security? You may need to restart File Explorer, as mentioned above, to see if anything is recorded about this at that time.

To check Windows Security:

1. Press Windows + R on your keyboard to open the Run dialog box.
2. Type ms-settings:windowsdefender into the Run dialog box.
3. Press Enter.
4. Click the Windows Security option at the top.
5. Select Protection History.

If there are any entries here, do these relate to this? You may need to click on each entry to see more info, and this may require an IT admin to help see these.

Allowing in registry

If the per user installer isn't loading, does the per machine version work? This may indicate a policy blocking unapproved shell extensions.

A per machine installation adds an entry in the computer registry, marking the application as approved.

To install manually, use the following file: Mail_Manager_shell_extension.reg.

Downloading and double-clicking it should add the same registry entry as the per machine installation, potentially enabling the per user installation.

After this change, you might need to reboot or restart File Explorer as previously mentioned.

Debug mode

To enable debug mode:

1. Make the registry change in this file: Enable_MM_Debug_Mode.reg.
   It can be disabled again by either removing the registry entry contained in that file or by making the registry change in this file: Disable_MM_Debug_Mode.reg.
   Downloading and double clicking on those files should make those changes.
2. Restart Windows File Explorer.

Debug mode adds extra logging, specifically a 'Loader' log file in the "%temp%\Mail Manager Diagnostics" folder for the sell extension. If this log is missing, it may indicate that an issue is preventing its creation.

When Outlook is reopened, command prompt windows for each Mail Manager module (e.g., startup and filer core) will display live output as Mail Manager runs in debug mode. This should be disabled once the work is complete.

Conflicting shell extensions

Another thing consider here is whether there possibly any conflicting shell extension.

Other applications that add themselves into the menu could be temporarily disabled or uninstalled and then File Explorer restarted, as mentioned above, to see if that helps.

A third party application, Shell Ex View, can be used to disable various shell extensions. You will need to restart File Explorer between each test.

Windows profile related

Can another unaffected user login to the machine and do they see the MM file explorer options extensions appear?

Is the affected user able to login to another PC and do they still not see the MM?

If so, this suggests it could be profile related somehow. However, if they see them on another PC, it might work if they recreate their windows profile on that PC.

They would need to back up data not stores on a shared drive or as part of their roaming profile and their IT should be able to help with this the whole process.

If you don't want to create a new Windows profile, perform a clean uninstall of Mail Manager before reinstalling it.

2. Troubleshooting sending links

Email window appears behind Outlook

This issue may be due to a conflicting Outlook add-in. Try temporarily disabling it to check if it resolves the problem.

An upgrade or downgrade of the software might also help. If so, the software developers should investigate to prevent the main window from taking focus.

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