It's always annoying to have to reboot your computer in the middle of the day (like when DF gets updated and requests a restart before it will load).

How about you go ahead and load the toolbar but say "some functions may not be available until you restart your computer"?

I usually just go a day or two without DF until I decide to reboot for some reason....

Feasible?

Ben, been a while sine I have been here.

What OS are you running? Windows 7 and I have yet to had a required restart of my OS after an update... (well, Beta updates, anyway) - cannot remember whether it happens on final product releases or not)....

EDIT: Added the following

Nm, I see from http://www.binaryfortress.com/Forum/index.php?topic=1912.msg9276#msg9276 that you are running XP.

This is going to sound extremely strange, but can you give me 1) specs on your video card, 2) the last several times you have cleaned the computer (as in dust interior, removing all components and giving them a good airing out, etc - like a spring cleaning), 3) your anti-virus / malware / suite that you use, and 4) any over clocking at all that you may perform? You regular resolution as well would be beneficial....

1 and 2 actually ahve nothing to do with this issue at all, 3 defintiely does, and 4 *may*.

However, 1 and 2 I ma asking b/c of that other thread, where you're getting display corruption - I over taxed my GeFore MX440 by running high res on dual monitors (it was marketed as an MX400 with dual monitor outputs, but I was not that into the cards at the time and didn't realize that while it supported dual monitors, running 1600 X 120 on both was actually killing my GPU), and it wasn't until I replaced it with my x1650 Pro that I realized that all of my problems with XP and screen deterioration lay not in drivers, not in software, but in pure hardware failure. I am suspecting that this may, in fact, be the case for those odd errors with the screen corruption.

For this issue, Next time you get a notification that DF needs to update, manually download the file, disconnect from the Internet, temporarily turn off your AV / AM / suite, and update - and see if it still needs to reboot. And if you OC (especially video) try turning that off first before updating as well (IIRC, I don't think you fool with OCing, but had to throw that in there just in case).

Jon, are there components in XP that get replaced that are still considered in active use or something?

Hey man! I run W7 at home and XP pro at work. Work is where the UI corruption has always come in. Work is a high-end DELL workstation with Quatro Pro FX 3580 (something like that) with dual hi-rez monitors. It's always been a bone of contention with me about our work machines. Our IT department has so much crap tacked onto these installs as to make it's performance 1/2 of what it should be (antiviris that scans EVERYthing, spysweeper, TSRs out the wazoo, and a new digital phone system that works off the network and acts as a hub for each computer (with it's own TSR)). Makes for a LOUSY graphics workstation environment - but that's another story.

I always build my own machines from the ground up at home and they run rings around the work machines with none of the problems.

Anyway, I've verified that DF isn't the cause of any of my UI corruptions because I've had it happen when DF had not been running. I've long suspected the graphics card (and install environment) and have a request in for a newer card. A reboot always cleans things up for awhile.

As far as our IT dept. cleaning out the boxes: only if the computer dies and they have it back in their shop to fix it... (sad really) But with over 350 computers, I suppose it would be a daunting task.

I know XP is a dieing breed, so you probably don't want to spend too much effort on this, but a timer in there somewhere might give apps time for the dlls to release.... no biggie...

(reboots again for latest beta... )

Sounds more like a problem with the display driver than the hardware. Most hardware glitches are caused by overheating, and a reboot is generally not enough time to let it cool down. Whereas a buggy display driver will go back to a known clean state after the reboot.

But either way, sounds like your corporate PC is so locked-down that you're going to have to wait for the IT department.