What happens if you rename explorer.exe in different versions of Windows? 

This is bizarre. I thought that a relatively modern os would perform some hash check before opening a system executable. Do you know whether this has been exploited in the past? For example, for autorunning a keylogger or or some other malware that would then execute explorer.exe so that the user would not notice? Or even by replacing explorer.exe with a modified, malignant version of the shell so that even task manager would not be able to show it?

@@GiorgioCapocasa task Manager is able to Show Explorer and also able to kill it

Hi @World_of_OSes how did you install office 2010 in Windows XP ?

@@abhishekshekhar4226 You just launch the installer and install it as you would in later versions of Windows. No workarounds needed.

@@ThatRandomToast It gives me an error in Windows XP saying: "Not a valid Win32 application" when launching the setup.exe It works in Windows Vista but I don't know why it doesn't work with Windows XP

It happened to me too. But, be careful. Thank you for sharing your story. :)

Back in I think it was 1993 we got out first family computer and one of the games they got for me was "Mickey Mouse's Follow the Reader" The PC had Windows 3.1 and I put the shortcut for Follow the Reader into the startup folder. My brother who was somewhat decent with computers couldn't figure out how to get rid of it and actually had to call tech support. The solution? Just take the shortcut out of the Startup folder! Once they told him that he felt so stupid like omg how did I not realize that!

nice story

SCP, the RU-vid channel. Jk and all of this just shows more proof that Microsoft did not create Windows OS. Which has been proven by the guy that actually created it. He is the guy that sold the OS for 2 dollars, the real version 1.0.

that’s kinda sad

So how different would you as a programmer handle that unexpected exception?

@@Lofote Keep the list of hashes of most important binaries, if any of them are wrong start a system check/recovery of the files from some system archive to at least make it bootable. After boot, show a warning that the system was tampered with, ask the user to back up his files and seek professional help immediately. Load system binaries not by name but by a hash and a digital signature. Add the checkbox to the settings 'Professional mode' where all system checks and security is disabled, the user can modify anything apart from the kernel and proprietary bits.

@@JamesSmith-ix5jdand how exactly would they do that on the old days

@@JamesSmith-ix5jd How the fuck would they do that in 1995

@@therealtiggler What do you mean? MD5 hash is from 1991. Encryption and keys are also not particularly new concepts, RSA is from ~1977. Signatures were probably not that important in early Windows because web and networks were not yet popular, I'm not complaining about that, just saying what I would have done instead.

😂

Haha. xD

Yep a note pad to launch programs

Hi. This is my cat! *fish on string drops from ceiling and weird filter appears on video. AHHHHHHH! Lol I'm pretty sure nobody is going to get that reference

I wonder if there is a practical benefit to doing this. Maybe less system memory usage.

Yup. Windows just ignores characters that appear after the first 8. So he was trying to rename explorer.exe to explorer.exe, hence the "duplicate filename" error message.

Of course.

Is not that, it’s the prompt command/ms-dos that doesn’t allow much chatacters so you have to use ~n to indicate the file in that case the had to write explor~1.exe or the alphabetically number of the file because there were about 3 files called explorer… so in nuts he can name a file with more than 8 digits characters… infact the error was that the file were in use…

Skibity

@@PurpleMonkVR4 get out of here with your Skibity jk at least your probably learning

I just thought it would boot windows repair and just fix it, turns out new tech can still be old school 😂

All windows versions are just old ones, but with new added features and design. You can still see old resource monitor

Yea

And windows 9 too

CE too

​@@Mell0wyDr3amswindows doesnt have windows 9

windows NONEXISTANT too man.

True.

dosen't it make it say EXPLOR~1?

​@@CutieFakeKirby That's what happens when you rename the file in Windows (specifically, a Windows program with long file name support). Since DOS and older Windows programs can't handle long file names, the file system stores an alternate file name in the old 8.3 format that takes the first six characters (minus spaces and certain other special characters), a tilde, and a digit. So longfile1.ext becomes LONGFI~1.EXT. And that shorter name is what DOS sees. But, again, that only works if you rename the file in Windows, because Windows knows how to handle long file names and to create the duplicate short file name in the first place. If you try to do so in DOS, it will just fail the same way it would have in the pre-Windows 95 days because it was never designed to handle long file names or create the short alternate name.

​@@seancdaugIIRC only staring with WinME you could use long filenames in command line.

in Windows 95 to XP, the program manager and file manager still exist

Windows 11 = 4 squares Next one will literally just be called "Window" and have a single square.

Pov you do it and now you dond have an windows 10 you hawe an windows XP

you what a windows xp @@bombowyolaf1244

Or older windows with newer exe? Tho, That might not work due to things that newer explorere does older windows doesnt "understand"

I'm gonna try that

​@Dinguslamer how'd it go?

"Progman" is short form "Program Manager"

purple frog man

nincompoop

Is it me or is the word progman looking kinda...... Thicccccc

​@@Nkmura6912-hl3mr*PROGMAN*

The code is still used by Windows 10. I accidentally crashed Explorer and tried minimizing a window, and it did show a small toolbar as well.

Upon further inspection, the reason why Notepad didn't come up after logging on, after having replaced Explorer with Notepad in Windows Vista and later is because Notepad won't open if it's got a different name, or in a different location. If I replace Explorer with Command Prompt, Command Prompt will come up after logging on. ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-HbWgwVgOuQ4.html

@@World_of_OSes I see.. thank you!

Any idea why it takes ages to log in?

@@World_of_OSes I guess it waits for explorer.exe to load and get to the desktop, but since there is no desktop component if you rename/replace explorer.exe, it keeps waiting for it and eventually times out.

@@markusTegelaneyou can change the timeout by creating a dword value named DelayedDesktopSwitchTimeout in HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\System and with the value to the number in seconds

@@markusTegelane That's true. I've done it many times to avoid Windows 10/11's "Hi" screen when I install a new copy of the aforementioned two systems.

@@markusTegelane Its not waiting, explorer.exe will fade the opacity of the welcome screen window when it loads. so they made the welcome screen stay running on a sleep timer long enough for explorer to load and fade it.

Yeah. Because new versions of windows were improved as it should be!

​@@TechUNB1and they add a lot of bloatware on top. Really annoying tbh. They could have stuck with a very light system but they run more stuff than necessary, and a lot of those aren't even essential for the system. The system underneath is perfect, like fast, and backward-compatible. The user space however is full of bloat.

@@akeiai yeah I hate bloatware like "AntIviRUs" it's litterally annoying to have a antivirus window pop up while you're gaming.

There's a reason the OS has been the same since vista just with more bloat in each new version. Hell, there's still some UI from NT 3.1 (I've heard.) hidden in some really obscure settings.

Turn up the Computer/hkey-local-machine/security/heat

bruh .

i mean there's a single line of code in windows that if you remove then the whole thing won't start at all

@@modables oh shoot! =_D i really didnt think Windows is that vulnerable! what if a virus deletes it? is destroying a computer that easy?

@@IspartaliKonstantinos yeah it's pretty easy, but a virus could never do something like that. you'd have to have pretty decent computer knowledge to pull off something like that because windows makes impossible to do something like that. i mean I don't even remember what the single line of code was because I found this out in 2020 so I'm probably just yapping nonsense ngl

​​@@IspartaliKonstantinosMalware doesn't really aim to trash your system anymore. Script kiddies went from trolling to stealing bank information and demanding crypto payments long ago

Ehh, he always wants me to smoke weed with him while he rambles on. I would rather ask Jeeves.

Or the Pro G-Man when you need to smell the ashes

You can do the same in other windows versions via regedit

Fast boot is a thing since Windows 8. And i always disable it, because it causes many problems

Win 11 needs 5 minutes to boot on my PC...

the only point of initramfs is to load a base system in order to mount the disk, to finish booting (in a usual sense)

Noobgman.exe

postgman.exe

frogman.exe

F1ckman.exe

winman.exe

I used to just start Linux from the command line and load the few Linux native games from there. I felt I got better performance not having a GUI.

Win300 Win400

And then we had DirectX

wheres win1000

@@honorificabilitudinitatibusishwin 10

Win8100

7:37

i cant edit the comment 😢

I had a trojan that did this to me back in 2012, except every file would open the trojan instead, asking for money. F you "WinHomeSecurity".

Nope

Registry Key for explorer.exe: The commenter correctly identifies the registry key where the explorer.exe filename is stored. This is indeed located at HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Winlogon\Shell. Error Handling: The comment suggests that modern, primarily .NET-based Windows components (such as the new Winlogon in Windows 11) log a FileNotFoundException if explorer.exe is not found at the path specified in the registry. However, this statement is not entirely accurate. While .NET-based components might indeed use FileNotFoundException for file-related errors, the handling of explorer.exe not being found is more complex and involves various error handling mechanisms within the operating system. Winlogon Behavior: The commenter mentions that older Win32-based Winlogon revisions catch a SIGSEGV signal and stall up if explorer.exe is not found. This statement is misleading. Winlogon is a crucial system process responsible for handling logon and logoff operations, and its behavior regarding explorer.exe execution or absence is not solely dependent on Win32 or .NET-based components. Moreover, SIGSEGV is a signal related to segmentation faults in Unix-like operating systems and is not directly relevant to Windows error handling mechanisms. Event Log Handling: The comment mentions that older Win32-based Winlogon revisions might write an illegal address into the Event Log if an error occurs. While it's true that Windows might log errors related to critical system processes like Winlogon, the specific behavior mentioned here is not standard or explicitly documented. Errors related to explorer.exe not being found would typically be logged as system-level errors rather than specifically mentioning illegal addresses. To correct the commenter's statements, you could provide a more accurate explanation of how Windows handles the execution of explorer.exe and the error handling mechanisms involved, without attributing specific behaviors to Win32 or .NET components. Additionally, it would be beneficial to clarify any misunderstandings about signals like SIGSEGV and their relevance to the Windows operating system. (By the way, it is written by A.I.)

​@@BOB-vl7ffsmile face