title: Diagnosing why a custom shell on Windows 10 IoT gives black screen
body: <p>I am configuring Windows 10 Enterprise (IoT) to run a custom shell, but running into the "Black screen with nothing other than a cursor" phenomena.</p>
  
  <p>My application - a .Net4 Winforms app - is installed and runs fine from the desktop.</p>
  
  <p>I can launch it as a custom shell via a batch file as per the comments here: <a href="https://stackoverflow.com/questions/33364908/how-to-run-an-application-as-shell-replacement-on-windows-10-enterprise">How to run an application as shell replacement on Windows 10 Enterprise</a></p>
  
  <p>But setting my app as a custom shell, I just get the black screen.  </p>
  
  <p>I note the comments in the above link about applications being signed, but I have tried two mini test applications (also .net winforms), one signed, one not, and both run fine as custom shells.  (My application has several dependencies, not all of which are signed, so to sign it would mean going through the ILMerge mill or similar which I would rather avoid if I can.)</p>
  
  <p>I don't expect people to be able to tell me why my app doesn't run (although that would be nice!) but I am looking for ways of diagnosing this.  Looking in event logs, etc, is yielding no information whatsoever.  My app keeps its own event log, which is not showing any evidence of the app starting.</p>
  
  <p>Thanks in advance</p>