New Version of ExplorerPatcher

`LockApp.exe` is the lock screen.

I don't have time to fix every of this silly incompatibilities. I have other things to take care of as well. Maintaining this software working on Insider Preview builds is a lost cause, especially considering how often they change things there. I use Windows 11 as well - when the Insider Preview version will become the next stable version, I will probably take the time and fix EP for it so that it lasts us another year and so on. But for keeping up with whatever they have rolling every week - sorry, but that takes too much time to do, I have other stuff to take care of as well. Plus, I have been holding on from saying it many times, but now I won't: I don't really understand why run Insider Preview and then a program that disables most of the stuff they introduce - what is the point? Insider Preview is for them to have you test their software and help with bug fixing it. How can that be done if people disable the new stuff...? I never understood the actual idea of running Insider Preview builds and then ExplorerPatcher on top of them.

Anyway, the only realistic way for the program to keep up with a Windows build, find bugs and fix them more rapidly, is for me to daily drive that build. For Insider Preview, that's not the case, hence the result. And I don't want to, I use my computer for other things as well, and I want it to be relatively untouched for a year, hence reliable, not to waste time with workarounds exactly when I need something and they messed with it in Insider Preview and it doesn't work.

I take your point there. This thread is where we try to sort things ourselves (maybe not very well) With dev builds we test all the features and EP just makes it easier to do that, I only like the taskbar which shouldn't affect the apps and features in these builds

valinet said:

... I don't really understand why run Insider Preview and then a program that disables most of the stuff they introduce - what is the point? ...

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I'm only gonna speak for myself: Cuz I'm really curious, then 95% of the time bitterly disappointed with the crap they roll out, then desperately try to make it work the way it should!
It's a love/hate thing!

@valinet

I absolutely see your point on not trying to keep up with Insider builds of Windows 11, especially the DEV Channel, which includes features that may never see the light of day. I'm going to shortly stop using the DEV Channel because I need to work with the current version of Windows in order to be on the same page with my Senior Citizen students who are chomping at the bit to try it out.

Is there a User Guide for Explorer Patcher? I'm quite sure they will not want to put up with the elimination of features that Windows 10 has once they discover the wrongness thereof.

Wynona said:

@valinet

I absolutely see your point on not trying to keep up with Insider builds of Windows 11, especially the DEV Channel, which includes features that may never see the light of day. I'm going to shortly stop using the DEV Channel because I need to work with the current version of Windows in order to be on the same page with my Senior Citizen students who are chomping at the bit to try it out.

Is there a User Guide for Explorer Patcher? I'm quite sure they will not want to put up with the elimination of features that Windows 10 has once they discover the wrongness thereof.

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valinet said:

Home

This project aims to enhance the working environment on Windows - valinet/ExplorerPatcher

github.com

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Thank you very much, @valinet.

I appreciate all the hard work gone into EP and my thoughts are, I have my whole pc set up exactly how I want it with EP and other programs all working fine. When I try a new dev Build, I expect some things not to work as they should that is part of the process of testing, sadly for me this time it was EP which may be a clue if other things are not working and because we are looking for a cause we are helping the testing. It is no big deal as this is dual boot and the other OS is stable and working well.

@valinet agree about fixing EP to work with Insider Dev versions is not a viable solution.. Stated it in my post too. i was just reporting
Some of us will probably still play with it

Keep up the good work.

I found a bug, my notification icons don't display correctly. May anyone help please? Thank you, it's much appreciated. =)

XEmberX said:

I found a bug, my notification icons don't display correctly. May anyone help please? Thank you, it's much appreciated. =)View attachment 24420

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What version do you run? Windows and ExplorerPatcher?

@AndreTen After understanding what @valinet said about EP and dev versions ( and agreeing) my only concern is that EP not working in build 572.1 may mean it will appear broken in all future dev builds

The-Hive said:

@AndreTen After understanding what @valinet said about EP and dev versions ( and agreeing) my only concern is that EP not working in build 572.1 may mean it will appear broken in all future dev builds

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There is a discussion on Github about fixing transparency problem, and should be fixed in .37 version of EP.

But in my case, Taskbar is still unresponsive after some time. Transparency problem is fixed though.

Yes, could be broken in future Dev versions, but the real problem is, some of this could appear in later regular version, so valinet has to be aware of this problems (not to fix them as they appear - as MS is really experimenting now)

Thanks @AndreTen I must have missed that, I will give it a try later and report back

The-Hive said:

@AndreTen After understanding what @valinet said about EP and dev versions ( and agreeing) my only concern is that EP not working in build 572.1 may mean it will appear broken in all future dev builds

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Just stop being so stubborn IMO and start using dev builds of EP on normal builds of Windows 11, like me.

@hdmi I do exactly that on my main machine but this is my test machine. How can it develop with dev windows build if people don't test it?

@AndreTen I can confirm that mine is the same as yours, transparency fixed but still totally unresponsive

The-Hive said:

@AndreTen I can confirm that mine is the same as yours, transparency fixed but still totally unresponsive

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It works with Windows 11 style Taskbar. Of course, you loose Taskbar behavior, but I'm still using Win 10 Start menu and Win+C gives you calendar with agenda

thanks @AndreTen I don't bother with the 11 taskbar, I just uninstall it. It is working perfectly on all my other machines not in the dev channel

The-Hive said:

@hdmi I do exactly that on my main machine but this is my test machine. How can it develop with dev windows build if people don't test it?

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There's simply no point trying. If you want to test ExplorerPatcher in ways that could potentially be meaningful, you need to use the 'production channel' builds of Windows 10/11. I don't use insider/dev builds of Windows 11 because the majority of insiders are not actually doing any real testing IMO (or not that much anyway), and, Microsoft barely ever listens to feedback from those who do. I am a trained Enterprise Java dev who has better things to do than watch old notepad get replaced with a new notepad that has a few blatant bugs and that, in spite of how blatant these factually are, none of the insiders on here even noticed are there until I pointed them [these bugs] out myself, anyway to begin with. (Not trying to point any fingers at anyone here, BTW─just trying to get a point across about 'testing' in general.)

This is not a rant, it's just a simple observation. I draw my own conclusions from it. Microsoft could have decided to give users the freedom of choice, by allowing us to keep the old notepad rather than force deleting it from our computers. How much effort do you think Microsoft would have needed to put in to grant this freedom of choice to us rather than keep bullying us in this manner─for the umpteenth time on Windows 11? Finally, how much effort do you think an insider who likes to pretend to be testing Windows would have needed to put in to be able to notice the bugs? Sorry for going off topic. But, whenever I want to test something, I don't usually want try one thing and then try another thing without knowledge of what it is that I am trying.

Since the github issues and discussion areas are closed for input I'm posting this here instead, I hope that's ok!

I ran into an issue and I've found a workaround.

Issue: Opening up files on a network drive causes the associated apps to terminate immediately, usually without any error dialog.
I ran into this issue with the apps: Paint.net and Typora.
The issue did not appear in these apps: Notepad, Notepad++, XnView MP, MS Office suite programs, Adobe suite programs, Sketchup, AutoCAD

I solved the issue by uninstalling ExplorerPatcher and then reinstalling it. I compared the exported settings before and after and found that the only thing that was different was this...

Doesn't work:
Works:
This is the same as going into Properties -> File Explorer and unchecking Register as shell extension.

Further details can be found in previous issues-threads: Typora and Paint.net.


So in summation: Registering ExplorerPatcher as a shell extension seems to cause issues with some applications when opening/saving files on a network drive. Unsure as to why, but disabling the shell extension registration is a usable workaround at the moment.

Cheers,
Krofi