Program not starting

[Art_in_MT]

ISSUE:
BRU starts a background process. Windows 10 Task Manager reports: Bulk Rename Utility 64-bit: 8% of cpu, steadily increasing memory use (2800mb and rising after 10 minutes), and "very high" power usage.
BRU NEVER launches the GUI for file renaming.

STEPS TAKEN SO FAR:
renamed old programs folder and reinstalled. No improvement.

CLUES:
I have a 12TB Synology NAS with hundreds of thousands of high-res images in RAW and DNG format (all containing EXIF info).
Network activity to the NAS appears steady and constant. If I use Task Manager to end-task BRU background task, network activity decreases. (I'm retired, and don't recall anymore how to check what files a particular program is accessing.)

Other clues:
Since I first installed BRU last spring(?), I have not been able to start BRU gui from the right-click menu if I've run Metatogger (an .mp3 tag editor) since the last reboot. (I got the background task that never completes, though.) I WAS able to start MBU by going to the .EXE file.

Last fall I began having to reboot before I could start BRU after running Metatogger. (It did not matter if Metatogger was still running.)
Today, even with a complete system reboot, BRU will not get beyond the aforementioned background process. (I have not started Metatogger, though of course other programs are running in background.)

Any advice? Any diagnostics I can run? Any commandline/startup arguments that might help? Edits to the INI file?
I've searched the forum, but don't see anything similar.

Thanks for your help!

[therube]

(Note that you'll likely need to kill any hung instance before attempting to open anew.)

Restart your computer into Safe Mode & see if that makes any difference?
Perhaps a "shell extension" is interfering? Try ShellExView.
(Options, Hide All Microsoft... will filter out "MS" items. I'd first look at anything "not" MS.)
Or maybe your antivirus?

Try the Portable Version.
It has both 32 & 64-bit versions.
Try both 32 & 64 & see if they'll open & run as expected.

[Art_in_MT]

Thank you! I will explore these suggestions.

[Art_in_MT]

(Note that you'll likely need to kill any hung instance before attempting to open anew.)

Restart your computer into Safe Mode & see if that makes any difference?
Perhaps a "shell extension" is interfering? Try ShellExView.
(Options, Hide All Microsoft... will filter out "MS" items. I'd first look at anything "not" MS.)
Or maybe your antivirus?

Try the Portable Version.
It has both 32 & 64-bit versions.
Try both 32 & 64 & see if they'll open & run as expected.

---------------------------------
Thank you for your help!

I was not able to find anything suspicious in the shell extensions, (though I must admit I lack the experience to be sure exactly what I was looking for).
However, any time the regular version refuses to start, if I kill the hung instance, running the PORTABLE .exe works reliably.

You've saved me a lot of frustration.