Solved windows explorer windows size - how to retain for new windows

hdmi said:

What debacle? The latest pre-release (22621.3880.66.7) of ExplorerPatcher works fine for me on 24H2. Only the Simple Window Switcher (SWS) feature is still broken for now. If you also use Open-Shell, there's a few minor quirks affecting Open-Shell's abilities to customize the taskbar (i.e., taskbar text color, taskbar texture, and the Search icon disappearing although this happens only if the taskbar's background is made to look brighter than a certain threshold, but the transparent taskbar option with opacity level works perfect). Aside from this, the major features all work. Flawlessly, on 24H2. With the previous version, 22621.3880.66.6, the Win+X no longer worked on 24H2, and the Weather feature was still missing if you had enabled the "Windows 10 (ExplorerPatcher)" taskbar style choice. (The "Windows 10" taskbar style is not supported on 24H2 due to Microsoft having removed the legacy code that this specific taskbar style choice uses.)

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If people found this thread accidentally searching for "explorer patcher", here's one user describing in detail how he got the explorer patcher and the 24H2 upgrades working for him.

HTH,
surio

surio said:

Thanks for chiming in. While it is offtopic I should address this as this is a case of "YMMV", with this particular tool. In fact, I also congratulate you that a) your 24H2 update went well (I saw many posts here that said their 24H2 upgrade went badly) and b) this tool works (actually, it's still broken, but you are aware and okay with it for now) for you while it didn't for me.

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It's not really off topic seeing as ExplorerPatcher is what actually solves the problem outlined in this thread (among a whole plethora of other problems), at least for me. All it took was to go to the File Explorer category in ExplorerPatcher settings, set "Control Interface:" to "Windows 10 Ribbon" in there, and choose to restart explorer. That's right, the new File Explorer of Windows 11 has so many bugs and annoyances that applying this tweak is still the shortest pain (again, at least for me).

However, if your only goal is to apply this specific tweak to see if it solves your problem for you, then you don't even need to install ExplorerPatcher. Because, then, all you need to do is follow Option Three in the tutorial to Restore Classic File Explorer with Ribbon in Windows 11. As a matter of true fact, Option Three of this tutorial was updated soon after a registry fix was posted to fix the problem of the old File Explorer not remembering its window position and size, and, this specific registry data was "borrowed" from.. yup you guessed it, ExplorerPatcher. Re "ExplorerPatcher is still broken". Listen, mate. LIFE is broken.

surio said:

To clarify, I said it was "my debacle" with the tool and not the "tool is a debacle".

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I know. To avoid similar debacles in the future, unless you really know what you are doing or you feel lucky, before you start to tweak your installation of Windows, you should seriously consider making an image of your Windows system partition (and all the other partitions required to keep Windows fully functional).

surio said:

I am on Windows 11 v23H2 - Build 22631.4317 and I have recently gone through a very painful wipe/reinstall of the OS as I have been struggling for months with valinet vs microsoft fight crippling my display driver over every update from each of them - OS, valinet tool, AMD display, etc. I didn't discover the main issue (OS vs. Valinet) until the OS/performance deteriorated to the point I had to do a clean install (see below).

After that clean install, and while I installed explorer patcher over it, windows flagged the "Detected: HackTool:Win64/ExplorerPatcher!MTB" and corrupted display driver again. I couldn't revert the registry settings from the app again, and I had to reinstall OS fresh again.

Even in this very thread, my windows explorer problems were down to motherboard OEM tool interfering with OS, or OS fighting a tool and punishing the user by hobbling his UX for making the "mistake" of installing a tool and not telling him how to fix it.

I (and I suspect there are many like me that) simply don't have the bandwidth, nor patience to chase up and do all this R&D and fiddling/juggling over what are essentially QoL simple utilities. I would rather not use them in first place so my OS runs without disrupting my regular usage without this incessant fiddling and falling over and tripping me.

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I highly doubt that ExplorerPatcher is responsible for AMD shoddy drivers, though.

ExplorerPatcher getting flagged by Windows Security in this manner is just a false positive. The PowerShell commands to add the file/folder exclusions needed to get around this are clearly visible in the description/note on GitHub where you can download ExplorerPatcher. No incessant fiddling nor fighting of any kind.. just reading the notes and basically that's it.

Part I:
On the actual topic of this thread, removing the smartbackup tool of gigabyte solved the issue I have, so I didn't have to look for or search for the option ("Restore Classic File Explorer with Ribbon in Windows 11") you referred to and it was not the issue I (and others responding) probably had.

Most search suggestions for windows explorer issues always bubbles microsoft forums good for nothing threads to the top, and not from elevenforums support unfortunately.

Part II:

hdmi said:

To avoid similar debacles in the future, unless you really know what you are doing or you feel lucky, before you start to tweak your installation of Windows, you should seriously consider making an image of your Windows system partition

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I know, therefore I have never bothered to go through doing any of those youtube "windows 11 optimisation" suggestions because I don't have bandwidth to assess every one of the tip before applying). This was meant to be a simple utility install and retain some old familiar behaviours from 10. Since it took a turn to something more than that, I have myself bowed out of using it.

Part III:
Probably my last reply on this topic because I'm not as invested in this explorer patcher tool as you are so, forgive me for not being as passionate as you. And honestly, don't feel invested enough to do all those steps that you stated, as necessary for getting it just to working, sorry.

We also won't know if these steps that got it working "this time" is going to be one time, or steps will keep changing in future, since microsoft is hell bent on not wanting this tool to succeed. It's not a "cost of doing business" most of us want to accept. That's not the type of bandwidth I can spare, as I told early on. I would rather just get used to the new workflow/UX microsoft wants to enforce.

Part IV:
Agree AMD has a bad rap for pushing buggy drivers (given how many products they do support, they do drop the ball occasionally), but having experienced my issues personally it was "valinet changes to system" vs "windows OS sabotaging them" that ruined my system, not AMD drivers.


To conclude, I kind of get all your exhortations in the post but maybe I don't have the same bandwidth to pursue it like say, buying an insurance policy for my family (that's me, it's nothing about you). There's a risk to reward ratio in most things in life, and some things (as simple as getting windows 10 look and feel of doing things at first glance) has a small threshold for a lot of us.

ciao.
surio.

I think this discussion would best serve the community if it's only about the issue of the Gigabyte Smart Backup software causing the Windows 11 Explorer to not remember its size and position. I regret having not checked the OP's specs and seeing that "B650M AORUS ELITE AX" is a Gigabyte motherboard. If I had, I would have only mentioned the Smart Backup software issue.

Any issues in regards to the old Windows 10 style Explorer not remembering its window size and position on Windows 11 (and subsequent discussion about ExplorerPatcher) is, IMO, not relevant to the OP's issue and would be best moved to another topic. I'll ping @Brink and @z3r010 in case they are interested in splitting this into two discussions.

LesFerch said:

I think this discussion would best serve the community if it's only about the issue of the Gigabyte Smart Backup software causing the Windows 11 Explorer to not remember its size and position. I regret having not checked the OP's specs and seeing that "B650M AORUS ELITE AX" is a Gigabyte motherboard. If I had, I would have only mentioned the Smart Backup software issue.

Any issues in regards to the old Windows 10 style Explorer not remembering its window size and position on Windows 11 (and subsequent discussion about ExplorerPatcher) is, IMO, not relevant to the OP's issue and would be best moved to another topic. I'll ping @Brink and @z3r010 in case they are interested in splitting this into two discussions.

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I agree. I wasn't interested in pursuing it, but couldn't let it go either. It is my fault too, if I had not responded to it, it would have been one isolated comment.

I am happy for that entire discussion to be moved separately if possible. My last reply on the topic also tried to highlight that essentially it was a smart disk backup issue and uninstalling it resolved it in the end.

LesFerch said:

Any issues in regards to the old Windows 10 style Explorer not remembering its window size and position on Windows 11 (and subsequent discussion about ExplorerPatcher) is, IMO, not relevant to the OP's issue and would be best moved to another topic. I'll ping @Brink and @z3r010 in case they are interested in splitting this into two discussions.

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Like I already tried to point out, both ExplorerPatcher and Option Three of the tutorial to Restore Classic File Explorer with Ribbon in Windows 11 are relevant to others who might stumble acoss this thread in the future. This is because neither the thread title nor the original post mention anything about the fact that avoiding to use either of these two possible (and valid) solutions is a requirement.