Explorer Patcher for Windows 11

This application aims to bring back a productive working environment on Windows 11, by restoring dormant functionalities from Windows 10 in the newest OS builds.

Current functionality enabled by this patcher includes:

• use the classic taskbar from Windows 10 (without the nasty effects of UndockingDisabled)
• restores the classic power user menu (Win+X) when using the classic taskbar
• ability for the Start menu and search to align to the left when using the classic taskbar (it follows the setting Left/Center in Settings\Personalization\Taskbar\Taskbar behaviors\Taskbar alignment)
• ability for the Start menu to show the app list by default when opening
• ability to customize the maximum number of "Most used" apps displayed in the app list in Start
• ability to show the Start menu on the monitor containing the cursor when you press the Windows key*
• disable the new context menus in File Explorer and restore the classic ones
• skin the "Safe to Remove Hardware" pop-up to match the context menus of the taskbar
• disables the logon delay which happened if you were to enable the classic taskbar using UndockingDisabled
• play log on sound, if enabled

It has been developed on and tested to work against the latest build, 22000.176. It should work on newer builds as well as long as the internal structure does not change too much (hopefully Microsoft won't remove all the legacy code).

A changelog is available here.

A detailed description of how this works is available on my web site here.

The application comes in the form of a dynamic-link library (DLL). Precompiled binaries are available in Releases.

Screenshots: <1>

(*) There is a bug currently in Windows 11 22000.176 where search may not open properly on other monitors. This is not because of this patcher, and will probably (hopefully) be fixed by Microsoft in a future build.

Installation

Simply copy the downloaded DLL named dxgi.dll to %windir% (usually C:\Windows) and restart Explorer.

At first launch, the application will notify you about missing symbols and will automatically download them from Microsoft. Then, it will try to determine some patch offsets for Explorer. The process involves automatically restarting Explorer a couple of times and evaluating the results. Please be patient and let this do its job; you will know it is done when you will see the old taskbar instead of the new one. Also, the application will show a notification to let you know it is done.

When it is done, the classic taskbar will be available and fully functioning, but you will notice the system tray misses the status icons. Those can be easily enabled by opening Run and going to %windir%\explorer.exe shell:::{05d7b0f4-2121-4eff-bf6b-ed3f69b894d9}\SystemIcons and enabling each system icon you wish from there. For a list of other useful registry settings that can help you make the most out of this application, like disabling taskbar grouping, read here.

After you get the classic taskbar working, to make it work with the Start menu and search and enable related functionality, copy the DLL to the following 2 locations as well:

• C:\Windows\SystemApps\Microsoft.Windows.StartMenuExperienceHost_cw5n1h2txyewy
• C:\Windows\SystemApps\MicrosoftWindows.Client.CBS_cw5n1h2txyewy

After that is done, kill both StartMenuExperienceHost.exe and SearchHost.exe from Task Manager, or simply log out and back in or restart the computer.

Downloaded symbols and application configuration is saved in the %appdata%\ExplorerPatcher folder.

To uninstall, simply delete dxgi.dll from all the directories above. If you get a "file in use" error when attempting to do so, simply rename it everywhere to dxgia.dll, reboot the computer and then delete the renamed DLL.

How does this work?

The way the application gets loaded is by exploiting the DLL search order in Windows. I take advantage of the fact that Explorer is one of the few system processes located in %windir% and not in %windir%\System32, so it does not affect most apps. Also, %windir% is not first in the search path. Read more about this technique here. The main advantage here is that you do not have to keep an extra process running in the memory; plus, due to the diverse nature of how Explorer is launched, hooking it can be difficult.

I picked dxgi.dll because it is not on the HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Session Manager\KnownDLLs list, because it has few exports and is loaded very early by Explorer, when calling the DXGIDeclareAdapterRemovalSupport() function.

Configuration

The settings.ini file contains, among the offsets for the various hooked/exploited functions, a few parameters that you can tweak:

• General\AllowImmersiveContextMenus = 1 will show the new context menus in Explorer instead of the legacy one
• General\AllocConsole = 1 will show a console when the application runs (useful for diagnostics).

The rest of the parameters that you can tweak and have them work with the application are located in the registry and are described here.

License

Hooking is done using the excellent funchook library (GPLv2 with linking exception), which in turn is powered by the diStorm3 (3-clause BSD) disassembler. Thus, I am offering this under GNU General Public License Version 2.0, which I believe is compatible.

Compiling

The following prerequisites are necessary in order to compile this project:

• Microsoft C/C++ Optimizing Compiler - this can be obtained by installing either of these packages:

  • Visual Studio - this is a fully featured IDE; you'll need to check "C/C++ application development role" when installing. If you do not require the full suite, use the package bellow.
  • Build Tools for Visual Studio - this just installs the compiler, which you'll be able to use from the command line, or from other applications like CMake

  Download either of those here. The guide assumes you have installed either Visual Studio 2019, either Build Tools for Visual Studio 2019.

• A recent version of the Windows SDK - for development, version 10.0.19041.0 was used, available here (this may also be offered as an option when installing Visual Studio)

• CMake - for easier usage, make sure to have it added to PATH during installation

• Git - you can use Git for Windows, or git command via the Windows Subsystem for Linux.

Steps:

1. Clone git repo along with all submodules

   git clone --recursive https://github.com/valinet/ExplorerPatcher
   

   If "git" is not found as a command, type its full path, or have its folder added to PATH, or open Git command window in the respective folder if using Git for Windows.

2. Compile funchook

   cd libs
   cd funchook
   md build
   cd build
   cmake -G "Visual Studio 16 2019" -A x64 ..
   

   If "cmake" is not found as a command, type its full path, or have its folder added to PATH.

   Type "Win32" instead of "x64" above, if compiling for x86. The command above works for x64.

   Now, in the libs\funchook\build folder, open the file funchook-static.vcxproj with any text editor, search and replace all occurences of <RuntimeLibrary>MultiThreadedDLL</RuntimeLibrary> with <RuntimeLibrary>MultiThreaded</RuntimeLibrary>.

   Once done, you can now compile funchook:

   cmake --build . --config Release
   

3. Compile ExplorerPatcher

   • Double click the ExplorerPatcher.sln to open the solution in Visual Studio. Choose Release and your processor architecture in the toolbar. Press F6 to compile.

   • Open an "x86 Native Tools Command Prompt for VS 2019" (for x86), or "x64 Native Tools Command Prompt for VS 2019" (for x64) (search that in Start), go to folder containing solution file and type:

     • For x86:

       msbuild ExplorerPatcher.sln /property:Configuration=Release /property:Platform=x86
       

     • For x64:

       msbuild ExplorerPatcher.sln /property:Configuration=Release /property:Platform=x64
       

   The resulting exe and dll will be in "Release" folder (if you chose x86), or "x64\Release" (if you chose x64) in the folder containing the solution file.

That's it. later, if you want to recompile, make sure to update the repository and the submodules first:

git pull
git submodule update --init --recursive