Advanced and hidden settings in ExplorerPatcher

What the section looks like

We photographed the section with both taskbars on Windows 11 25H2 on Arm64 (build 26200.9725), ExplorerPatcher 26100.9711.71.1. Windows Server 2025 showed the same rows.

The left picture is ExplorerPatcher’s taskbar with eleven options, the right one the Windows 11 taskbar with nine. The window opens with “Only change these settings after reading the documentation about them.” With the Windows 11 taskbar, two options are missing: “Pinned items act as quick launch” and “When the taskbar shows button labels, remove the extra gap around pinned items”, because they only apply to Windows 10 style taskbars. The Language box is not in this section in the app: it sits in Settings and uninstall, but our data files it under Advanced, so its card is below.

Overview

All advanced settings

One switch our data does not list

Enable SysListView32 for Explorer views is in the window (marked with an asterisk, so it needs a File Explorer restart) but not in our data. Upstream’s wiki describes it as enabling the legacy list control File Explorer used to show folders: deprecated, with less padding, a better fit for the classic theme, and known problems with the dark theme. According to upstream’s settings file it is stored as a registry key under HKCU\Software\Classes\CLSID\{1eeb5b5a-06fb-4732-96b3-975c0194eb39}\InprocServer32 with an empty default value, not as a value in the ExplorerPatcher key. We have not tested it.

What to change first

Nothing, unless you have a reason. The one option most people come for is Pinned items act as quick launch, together with the extra-gap option, if you use a labelled Windows 10 taskbar. In our test, with it on and labels shown, pinned apps stayed separate. The recipe is on the labels guide.

If a taskbar problem sends you here, change one option, restart File Explorer, and look. Do not tick several at once.

Combinations and traps

Console. “Enable console” opens a debug window for Explorer. Upstream warns that closing that window restarts File Explorer; untick the option first, then close the window. Keep it off day to day.

Dump memory leaks. Upstream says it only prints something in debug builds, resets itself after one use and shows nothing with the release build you download. Skip it.

Double-click the taskbar to toggle auto-hide. Upstream says it does not work as intended: on the Windows 10 taskbar it only works on the primary taskbar and only when the taskbar is locked. It may be removed.

Classic theme mitigations. Meant for people who run Windows with themes turned off. On a normal setup it can make the taskbar look wrong, see upstream’s “My taskbar looks broken” entry in its FAQ.

Show Windows build info on the desktop. Paints the build string like an Insider build. We could not demonstrate it: our test machines already paint the build text at the bottom right of every screenshot, so the switch shows no difference there.

Hide Properties from the taskbar menu. “Do not change the taskbar context menu” removes the Properties item. If you turn it on, add the Win+X shortcut in the Other section or run rundll32 C:\Windows\dxgi.dll,ZZGUI from Win+R, which is the command upstream gives.

Enable symbols download. Keep it on unless you know why you would not. Upstream says ExplorerPatcher needs Microsoft’s symbol data for your Windows build and downloads it when it is missing, which is typical right after a new Windows release. Turning it off can leave ExplorerPatcher without data for a new build. See how it works and taskbar not changing.

XAML sounds. A novelty. Upstream says it will never fix problems related to it.

Hidden settings

These are registry values that ExplorerPatcher’s code reads but that the Properties window does not show. We got the list by searching upstream’s source for registry reads and writes (version 26100.9711.71.1) and comparing the names with the settings in the window. That found 135 value names, 40 of which are not in Properties. The table covers the ones whose effect we could read from the code. The rest are internal bookkeeping or unclear.

Crash protection

When ExplorerPatcher starts inside Explorer it adds 1 to CrashCounter and clears it again after the time below. If the counter has reached the threshold when it starts, ExplorerPatcher resets the counter, can show its “File Explorer is crashing” dialog and does not take over: you get the stock Windows taskbar. Holding Ctrl, Shift and Alt at that moment takes the same path, which is why our Ctrl+Alt+Shift test showed that dialog even though nothing crashed.

Start menu and taskbar behaviour

Window switcher (under HKCU\Software\ExplorerPatcher\sws)

ScrollWheelInvert, MaxWidthAbs, MaxHeightAbs and AlwaysUseWindowTitleAndIcon are read from the sws subkey. The code that acts on them is in the Simple Window Switcher library, which is not part of the source tree we read, so we cannot say what they do. The names suggest a reversed scroll direction, absolute size limits and a window title and icon choice, but that is a guess. See the window switcher settings.

Weather widget

Upstream’s example for the first one:

[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\SOFTWARE\ExplorerPatcher]
"WeatherDevMode"=dword:00000001

See the weather page for what the widget loads.

Read but with no effect we could find

ArchiveMenu (default 0) is read; when non-zero the code starts a helper thread that creates a hidden window called “ArchiveMenuWindowExplorer”. We could not tell what it is for. HookStartMenu is read (default 1 in the code), but the code that would use it is commented out.

Internal values you may see

IsUpdatePending, OpenPropertiesAtNextStart, MigratedFromOldSettings and SymbolsLastNotifiedOSBuild are bookkeeping that ExplorerPatcher writes. The registry export from our Windows Server 2025 test machine shows CrashCounter, MigratedFromOldSettings, OpenPropertiesAtNextStart and SymbolsLastNotifiedOSBuild, plus subkeys that hold hashes and function offsets. Leave them alone.

If you change any of these and Explorer stops starting, the black screen steps come first. For crashes, see Explorer crashing.