Whenever I start Windows 11, it stays on blank screen. I have to press Ctrl + Alt + Del, and from the menu, start ‘Task Manager’ and from the Run New Task, have to execute ‘Explorer.exe’ multiple times, with and without Admin rights. So explorer starts during this session. However, from EventViewer, I’m getting following Error Log, occurred multiple times:

Faulting application name: explorer.exe, version: 10.0.22621.3880, time stamp: 0x0a9e5890
Faulting module name: UxTheme.dll, version: 10.0.22621.3810, time stamp: 0xa5efeec5
Exception code: 0xc000041d
Fault offset: 0x000000000001c50d
Faulting process id: 0x0x497C
Faulting application start time: 0x0x1DAE004E9A69F2A
Faulting application path: C:WINDOWSexplorer.exe
Faulting module path: C:WINDOWSSYSTEM32UxTheme.dll
Report Id: 1ff22209-f60a-4174-805d-b1c049b27c91
Faulting package full name: 
Faulting package-relative application ID: 

I have already done the following in an elevated command prompt:

Dism /Online /Cleanup-Image /CheckHealth 
Dism /Online /Cleanup-Image /ScanHealth 
Dism /Online /Cleanup-Image /RestoreHealth
sfc /scannow

None of those report any problems.

Please note, in past, I installed “ExplorerPatcher” (https://github.com/valinet/ExplorerPatcher) and WindHawk (https://github.com/ramensoftware/windhawk) in order to resize and arrange the Window 11 taskbar and its icons.

I found the ExplorerPatcher code referencing UxTheme.dll here:

https://github.com/valinet/ExplorerPatcher/blob/c8434659cc176b549c68c9fce078b66c3556c68d/ep_extra_valinet.win7alttab/main.c

See the lines:

83:  VnPatchDelayIAT(hAltTab, "uxtheme.dll", "OpenThemeData", AltTab_OpenThemeData);
84:  VnPatchDelayIAT(hAltTab, "uxtheme.dll", "DrawThemeTextEx", AltTab_DrawThemeTextEx);

Although ExplorerPatch was removed, but still uxtheme.dll is faulting…

So need help in order to fix this. I guess, its the UxTheme.dll module. Please guide how to repair/restore it.

Thanks a bunch

Farrukh