Tested on build: 22000.282.
New features
- Cortana button now opens the Widgets panel
- Ability to choose what happens when clicking the Network icon in the system tray
- Possibility to use the legacy clock flyout
- Possibility to use the legacy volume flyout
- Fixes to fully support the classic theme, with a functional taskbar, system tray, Explorer windows, working context menus; read more about this feature here
- Choose type of flyout for clock (.1)
- Compatibility with build 22000.282 (.2)
Feature enhancements
- Reorganized settings in the GUI
- Added option not to have an accelerator for the
Propertiesmenu entry inWin+X(#162) - The "Adjust date/time" and "Customize notification icons" links in the clock context menu now open the more versatile Control Panel applets (.4)
- The console can now be disabled and then dismissed without causing the Explorer process to restart (.4)
- Implemented a new exported function which restarts File Explorer cleanly, reloading your folder windows:
rundll32 C:\Windows\dxgi.dll,ZZRestartExplorer(.4)
Fixes
- Fixed an issue where the Windows 10 window switcher failed to display some windows (#161)
- Fixed an issue that prevented Start from opening again until Explorer was restarted after opening File Explorer via the Start menu Explorer icon (#145)
- Fixed patching in libvalinet
- Fixed GUI launch path; GUI now launches in an external process, survives Explorer restarts
- Addresses an issue that prevented correct operation under certain circumstances and that could lead to a rare bug where Explorer would crash after a Control Panel window was opened (also related to Control Panel windows not always respecting preferences like "disable navigation bar") (.3)
- Fixed a bug that caused the cursor to move when invoking
Win+X(.4) - Fixed a bug that caused incorrect positioning of
Win+Xwhen the main taskbar was present on a monitor different than the primary one (.4) - The Start menu now automatically reloads in the background only when its settings change, instead of when any settings change (.4)
- Improved the reliability of the "Restart File Explorer" link in the Properties GUI (.4)
- Improved the detection of scenarios when the patcher should inject and apply the full set of patches to File Explorer (.4)
- Other bug fixes (.4)
Experimental
PLEASE NOTE THAT RUNNING AS SHELL EXTENSION IS STILL EXPERIMENTAL, UNSUPPORTED, AND ONLY RECOMMENDED FOR SPECIFIC USE CASES THAT YOU SHOULD KNOW ABOUT ALREADY. IT IS NOT REQUIRED FOR OBTAINING ANY OF THE CORE FUNCTIONALITY, IT IS AVAILABLE ONLY FOR SOME ADVANCED USE CASES AND IS STILL A BIGGER WORK-IN-PROGRESS THAN THE MAIN PROJECT.
The application can now be registered as a shell extension. This will enable the Explorer related functionality to work in Open/Save file dialogs as well. This is especially useful for users wanting proper support of the classic theme in Windows 11.
Please note that this is experimental. For the moment, the preferred installation method remains dropping the DLL in C:\Windows. For interested users, I invite you to test this functionality and report your findings in the discussions board.
To enable this, put the 2 DLLs (ExplorerPatcher.amd64.dll and ExplorerPatcher.IA-32.dll) in a secure folder (for example, C:\Program Files\ExplorerPatcher). Then, in that folder, run this command: regsvr32 ExplorerPatcher.amd64.dll. After elevation, a message will display informing you of the operation outcome, and if it went well, Explorer will restart displaying the old taskbar.
To uninstall, run regsvr32 /u ExplorerPatcher.amd64.dll in the same folder and preferably reboot the computer to unload the DLLs from all applications. Then, the files can be deleted just fine.
Please consult the README for more details.
A detailed change log is available here.