New Version of ExplorerPatcher

Gravarty · Oct 12, 2022

Starting with 22H2, ExplorerPatcher has problems with the Windows 11 start menu, Win+X menu and the superbar right click menu.
It just doesn't work. The old Windows 10 start menu works fine. I already tried to remove ExplorerPatcher and all its dependencies (and even reinstalled Windows 11) but none of this fixed the problem. A new beta update was released a few hours ago but that also didn't fixed it :/

spapakons · Oct 12, 2022

I use Open Shell and Explorer Patcher, right click on the taskbar works OK, right-click on the start button shows another menu because of the Open Shell, haven't tried Shift+Win or Shift and right-click that shows the Windows 11 Tools (Win+X).

hdmi · Oct 12, 2022

spapakons said:
, haven't tried Shift+Win or Shift and right-click that shows the Windows 11 Tools (Win+X).

It all works for me with Open-Shell 4.4.170 and ExplorerPatcher 22621.608.51.3 running on Win11 22H2 build 22621.674. Also, because I have edited my Open-Shell settings, left-click opens the Classic Start Menu (Win7 style) of Open-Shell whereas Shift + left-click opens the start menu (Win10 style) of ExplorerPatcher. My only "gripe"

is that my Show desktop shortcut (QuickLaunch bar) doesn't work as long as the Win10 start menu is open, and, unlike the Win7 start menu, clicking on an empty space on the taskbar doesn't close the Win10 start menu.

vince_qa · Oct 12, 2022

Completely new to this forum, but I wanted to drop a few things that just cropped up for me. I reinstalled a keyboard driver, and upon reboot ExplorerPatcher had gone very strange. Taskbar icons too wide, the context menu is blank, clicking on the Properties icon in the menu sends me to the actual Win11 taskbar properties settings page, and no matter how I uninstall/reinstall EP (including a fresh download and elevated install), it ends up doing the same thing. It also got rid of my clock in the bottom right.

Wondering if somehow I broke it, or if this is something else. Anyone else seeing this?

arthuridea · Oct 12, 2022

The EP works fine for me except a little issue.I configured with windows 11 startmenu and windows 10 taskbar.
After updating to Windows 11 version 22H2(22621.674), I found StartMenu pin layout settings not working.
I tried to switch between options but nothing changed,the start menu remains the default layout.
EP version: 22621.608.51.1~3

spapakons · Oct 13, 2022

Uninstall everything taskbar related, such Open Shell or Classic Start , Explorer Patcher and any other similar utility. Restart your computer reinstall the other utilities first and last the Explorer Patcher. This worked for me.

vince_qa · Oct 13, 2022

spapakons said:
Uninstall everything taskbar related, such Open Shell or Classic Start , Explorer Patcher and any other similar utility. Restart your computer reinstall the other utilities first and last the Explorer Patcher. This worked for me.

Explorer Patcher was the only utility I was using, and I did a full uninstall. No luck; once I reinstall it, it breaks in the exact same way.

pietcorus2 · Oct 13, 2022

Open Shell with StartAllBack working very fine together in 22H2-Win11..............

spapakons · Oct 13, 2022

Maybe some traces of Explorer Patcher are left causing the issue. I would use an Uninstaller to completely remove it, restart and try to reinstall it.

vince_qa · Oct 13, 2022

spapakons said:
Maybe some traces of Explorer Patcher are left causing the issue. I would use an Uninstaller to completely remove it, restart and try to reinstall it.

I believe I already tried this, by both doing the command line uninstall and renaming the installer to the uninstaller per the GitHub page. Maybe I'm missing a step.

spapakons · Oct 13, 2022

A third party Uninstaller such as Your Uninstaller or IO-bit Uninstaller etc first uninstalls the application normally and then searches the Registry and file system for leftover traces in order to remove them all.

vince_qa · Oct 13, 2022

spapakons said:
A third party Uninstaller such as Your Uninstaller or IO-bit Uninstaller etc first uninstalls the application normally and then searches the Registry and file system for leftover traces in order to remove them all.

I'll go grab one of these and give them a whirl. Thank you.

EDIT: IOBit saved my butt. Thank you for all your help, seriously. Must have been leftover files holding it back.

R84MK · Oct 13, 2022

spapakons said:
Uninstall everything taskbar related, such Open Shell or Classic Start , Explorer Patcher and any other similar utility. Restart your computer reinstall the other utilities first and last the Explorer Patcher. This worked for me.

But Explorer Patcher doesn't have one function, custom start orb.

R84MK · Oct 13, 2022

Explorer Patcher not work on latest beta channel 22623.746

Only Task Manager works.

Neboer · Oct 14, 2022

Gravarty said:
Starting with 22H2, ExplorerPatcher has problems with the Windows 11 start menu, Win+X menu and the superbar right click menu.
It just doesn't work. The old Windows 10 start menu works fine. I already tried to remove ExplorerPatcher and all its dependencies (and even reinstalled Windows 11) but none of this fixed the problem. A new beta update was released a few hours ago but that also didn't fixed it :/

Me too, I have just updated to 22h2 and use latest ep, then I found that the start menu was always the Windows11-styled, win10 start menu just didn't work. I'm quite sad for this so please support Windows11 22h2 thank you ep developer!

saltocean · Oct 14, 2022

I'm obsessed with creating BAT files that can download and install the latest versions of some of the software I use. I also prepared for ExplorerPatcher. These commands automatically downloads and installs the latest pre-prelease version of ExplorerPatcher.

I am aware that ExplorerPatcher already has an auto-update feature. I wanted to share with the hope of helping those who want to download automatically through the command line (/BAT script) of the latest version of a software in Github.

@echo off
cd /d "%~dp0"
ECHO.
ECHO ::: ExplorerPatcher Updater ::: by PureOcean (2022-10-14)
ECHO.
ECHO Detecting last version...
FOR /F "usebackq tokens=*" %%A in (`powershell -c "$ProgressPreference = 'SilentlyContinue'; (Invoke-WebRequest 'https://api.github.com/repos/valinet/ExplorerPatcher/releases' | ConvertFrom-Json)[0].assets | Select-Object -Property browser_download_url | Format-Table -HideTableHeaders"`) DO set ExplorerPatcherURL=%%A

FOR /F "tokens=7 delims=/_" %%A in ("%ExplorerPatcherURL%") Do set ExplorerPatcherVersion=%%A

ECHO.
ECHO Downloading lastest version...
ECHO.
CURL -# -L -R "%ExplorerPatcherURL%" --output "ExplorerPatcher_%ExplorerPatcherVersion%.exe"
ECHO.
ECHO ExplorerPatcher %ExplorerPatcherVersion% installing...
"ExplorerPatcher_%ExplorerPatcherVersion%.exe" /install

ECHO.
ECHO Done.
pause >nul
exit /b

Megahertz · Oct 14, 2022

I had some problems upgrading Win 11 from 21h2 to 22h2.
Did the in place upgrade and everything went smooth till the last reboot and login into my account.
All I was able to see was a black screen, my mouse cursor and small window of Open hardware monitor. I gues Explorer didn't start. I restarted, same thing.
So I loaded my Win 11 21h2 drive image, uninstalled Explorer Patch and Open-Shell and run the in place upgrade again.
This time almost everything succeeded. After Windows update I reinstalled Explorer Patch and Open-Shell and is working, a little slow but it is working. Again check disk began " Deleting extended attribute set due to the presence of reparse point on file..."
What isn't working is Edge. Did everything I could think about (reinstall Edge, SFC, dism etc) without success.
How can Microsoft release a major update with so many issues?

TraderGary · Oct 14, 2022

Megahertz said:
I had some problems upgrading Win 11 from 21h2 to 22h2.
Did the in place upgrade and everything went smooth till the last reboot and login into my account.
All I was able to see was a black screen, my mouse cursor and small window of Open hardware monitor. I gues Explorer didn't start. I restarted, same thing.
So I loaded my Win 11 21h2 drive image, uninstalled Explorer Patch and Open-Shell and run the in place upgrade again.
This time almost everything succeeded. After Windows update I reinstalled Explorer Patch and Open-Shell and is working, a little slow but it is working. Again check disk began " Deleting extended attribute set due to the presence of reparse point on file..."
What isn't working is Edge. Did everything I could think about (reinstall Edge, SFC, dism etc) without success.
How can Microsoft release a major update with so many issues?

No problems here, but then I don't run a bunch of apps that modify the operating system.

spapakons · Oct 14, 2022

Before upgrading I always disable all non-Microsoft services and startup applications to make sure nothing goes wrong. For unsupported computers I also disconnect from the internet, see relevant thread.