Patch to fix crashes in several applications, such as MPC-HC/VLC/MPV/PowerToys

[clsid2]

Before reporting your issue

• I have confirmed that this issue does not happen when ExplorerPatcher is not installed
• I do not have "register as shell extension" enabled
• I have tried my best to check existing issues

Repro ExplorerPatcher versions

N/A

Repro Windows Versions

N/A

3rd party tweak software installed

N/A

Describe the bug

Several applications experience crashes when "Register shell extension" is enabled. Particularly in combination with Simple Window Switcher enabled.

This is a simple patch to prevent ExplorerPatcher from hooking into affected applications. It uses a filename based blacklist, which can easily be expanded with additional apps.

I don't need credit for the patch. So if anyone can commit this or create a PR for this, then great. Saves me hassle of creating one.

Related issue: #4794

From 4bc29bdac36f657af057ffd8e8d2228cbc740f26 Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001
From: clsid2 <4704996+clsid2@users.noreply.github.com>
Date: Mon, 5 Jan 2026 00:00:00 +0000
Subject: [PATCH] app blacklist

---
 ExplorerPatcher/dllmain.c | 8 ++++++++
 1 file changed, 8 insertions(+)

diff --git a/ExplorerPatcher/dllmain.c b/ExplorerPatcher/dllmain.c
index cd6fbd7..01de6dc 100644
--- a/ExplorerPatcher/dllmain.c
+++ b/ExplorerPatcher/dllmain.c
@@ -13097,6 +13097,14 @@ HRESULT EntryPoint(DWORD dwMethod)
     );
     CloseHandle(hProcess);
 
+    // application blacklist
+    TCHAR appblacklist[5][10] = { TEXT("mpc-hc"), TEXT("mpc-be"), TEXT("vlc.exe"), TEXT("mpv.exe"), TEXT("powertoys") };
+    for (int bl = 0; bl < sizeof(appblacklist) / sizeof(appblacklist[0]); bl++) {
+        if (StrStrIW(exePath, appblacklist[bl])) {
+            return E_NOINTERFACE;
+        }
+    }
+
     TCHAR wszSearchIndexerPath[MAX_PATH];
     GetSystemDirectoryW(wszSearchIndexerPath, MAX_PATH);
     wcscat_s(wszSearchIndexerPath, MAX_PATH, L"\\SearchIndexer.exe");
-- 
2.32.0.windows.1

Expected outcome

N/A

Actual outcome

N/A

Additional info

No response

Crash Dumps

No response

Media

No response

[emirberkbahat746-sys]

ş

[pyrates999]

Hi @milestprower92

Is the suggested changes to the source code of EP going to be made?

[clsid2]

It is not a duplicate of that issue. It is a suggested solution to the issue described in that issue.

@Amrsatrio
Perhaps you could even extend this code to a user defined blacklist option in EP settings. A simple semicolon separated list of strings. Explode that into array/list. Then check if any of those substrings match to exepath.

But better would be to of course fix the root cause of the crash.

[Amrsatrio]

Hi, thank you for the patch. I will ship this patch in the next update. Sorry for my hiatus from this project too, there are long-term college matters that I have to take.

[clsid2]

Thanks. That is good news.

Simple Window Switcher seems to also work for me without registering the shell extension. So why does the shell code (also) call SWS initialization? The SWS init code is where most of the crashes come from.

I can provide crash dump in case you need it. But it is easy to reproduce. Just grab portable zip for MPC-HC and open a file dialog from the menu.

[Amrsatrio]

I did not architect both SWS and shell extension systems, so cannot comment on the rationale. But to me it seems like shell extensions is an afterthought. I'll definitely check that out, but not now, after my thesis defense in 2/3 weeks :)

Feel free to remind me if I forget.

[clsid2]

Good luck!

[Amrsatrio]

You could make a PR if you don't mind, I can do a quick review when I have the slightest of free time. I prefer Windows-codebase like conventions, like:

static const WCHAR* const c_rgDisallowedNames[] =
{
    L"mpc-hc",
    L"powertoys",
};
for (size_t i = 0; i < ARRAYSIZE(c_rgDisallowedNames); ++i)
{
    // ...
}

[clsid2]

You can commit your own variation of this trivial patch. That is easier. I don't need any credit for it.