I love my new start menu and taskbar, OR ELSE.
Many of us who despise the changes Microsoft made in Windows 11 look more like Macs than Windows machines. There are also nice new features, such as the intermittent loss of the ability to interact with the taskbar using the mouse until I click his Windows button on the keyboard. Another favorite is to tie Task Manager to Explorer.exe so you can’t easily restart that service like you did in Windows 11 and earlier.
It’s possible to fix at least some of these awesome features with third-party UI customization software, but as many have discovered, Microsoft seems to be looking for ways to break them. The latest UI customization package to experience is ExplorerPatcher or StartAllBack. If you are running Win11 22H2 and you apply the optional KB5022913 February 2023 Non-Security Preview update, you may not be able to launch the desktop.
As you can imagine, Microsoft blames third parties, suggesting that “apps often do customizations using unsupported methods.” This causes Explorer.exe to go into a loop and not start properly. Something is wrong with your computer.
For StartAllBack version 3.5.6 and above, you should verify that the issue does not occur, but you should upgrade before applying the patch. As for other third-party UI customization tools, Microsoft recommends removing them before updating. Their only suggestion when faced with a machine that won’t boot Windows is to contact the developer of the app for assistance.
