Windows 11 Build 22563 File Explorer Crash | How to Fix

Win + X can cause File Explorer to crash

Microsoft released Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 22563 yesterday for Dev channel users, which brings a number of improvements such as tablet mode optimization. However, some users have given feedback that a major bug has appeared after this update, where Windows explorer.exe crashes and restarts when right-clicking on the Start button or using the Win + X shortcut.

From the feedback, the bug has a high probability of triggering, but the good news is that some users have found a solution to the bug, which is enabling the new version of the collapsible taskbar introduced in Build 22563.

How to fix Windows 11 Build 22563 explorer.exe crash

Microsoft has introduced a new collapsible taskbar in Windows 11 Dev Build 22563, but it's only available to some users. According to information discovered by Albacore, the source of the bug may be this taskbar.

More specifically, the taskbar is designed for tablet mode and has an internal value that determines whether the taskbar is collapsed or not. However, older versions of the taskbar do not have this collapse feature at all, so there will be a null pointer reference, thus causing explorer.exe to crash.

If you encounter this problem, the current solution is to enable the new version of the taskbar. To do this, you can use ViveTool with the following command:

And if you want to go back to the old version of the taskbar, please enter the following command:

At this time, this inference has not been acknowledged or responded to by Microsoft. Users who encounter this problem can first try to solve it by the above solution, and then wait for the official fix.