Microsoft has confirmed that Windows 11 Shell and every associated core feature and element are actually broken, and have been like this for many months.
Microsoft says that it is working on a fix but, for now, has provided a couple of workarounds to deal with the issue. First, Microsoft says that restarting the Shell Infrastructure host (SIHost.exe) service will help restore the missing Immersive Shell packages. This can be done with the following commands:
Second, a PowerShell logon script has been shared that essentially blocks Explorer from launching prematurely until the required packages are fully provisioned. The batch script for that is given below:
@echo off
REM Register MicrosoftWindows.Client.CBS
powershell.exe -ExecutionPolicy Bypass -Command "Add-AppxPackage -Register -Path 'C:\Windows\SystemApps\MicrosoftWindows.Client.CBS_cw5n1h2txyewy\appxmanifest.xml' -DisableDevelopmentMode"
REM Register Microsoft.UI.Xaml.CBS
powershell.exe -ExecutionPolicy Bypass -Command "Add-AppxPackage -Register -Path 'C:\Windows\SystemApps\Microsoft.UI.Xaml.CBS_8wekyb3d8bbwe\appxmanifest.xml' -DisableDevelopmentMode"
REM Register MicrosoftWindows.Client.Core
powershell.exe -ExecutionPolicy Bypass -Command "Add-AppxPackage -Register -Path 'C:\Windows\SystemApps\MicrosoftWindows.Client.Core_cw5n1h2txyewy\appxmanifest.xml' -DisableDevelopmentMode"
I swear to god, if I hear “Windows just works” one more goddamn time…
Maybe I’ve just been lucky, but for several years and on several different machines I’ve found Linux just works, while Windows is an endless treadmill of frustration and brokenness.
I swear to god, if I hear “Windows just works” one more goddamn time…
When did Microsoft steal Apple’s marketing material?
Maybe I’ve just been lucky, but for several years and on several different machines I’ve found Linux just works, while Windows is an endless treadmill of frustration and brokenness.