Explorer.EXE This file does not have an app associated with it for performing this action.

I have just had a phone call from a user asking what it is - it looks to be spreading more and more - surely this isn't a localised issue and there are more people with this?

I would have thought Microsoft would be looking into this or even giving us a registry key to stop error pop-ups for Windows Explorer

We have several Windows 11 stations with M365 Business OneDrive running where this also happens, seem to be when we leave the computers alone for a bit. So when idle the computers are indexing etc. not sure if that would cause this.

It must be a wider spread issue. Previous suggested fixed aren't working for us, so I'm posting to voice my concerns, hopefully a fix can be found.

thanks,

Uli

Unfortunately, you're probably right about it probably being a false lead. That's a technical preview update (the "Microsoft would like you to voluntarily be a guinea pig to beta-test our monthly quality patches before we know they're .. quality 😅) that is offered in Windows Update every month - from December *2014*.

https://www.catalog.update.microsoft.com/Search.aspx?q=KB3025096

And, many people have reported this (I see it repeatedly in the log on my newest machine - manufactured and initially installed during 2024) as well.

We may have found a lead - probably a false one but the following screenshot

Has around the same timing as when the user gets the explorer.exe issue

It looks like it has an update that has failed to install on the PC through Windows update (KB3025096)

We will look into installing it manually to see if this helps the user and then let you know

Here is a blog about that update and the explorer.exe crash

Windows 10 KB3025096 and KB3020111 Patches for Explorer Crashing (groovypost.com)

The log file can be found c:\Windows\Logs\CBS\CBS.log

Unfortunately, the Bags registry keys aren't it.

The problem is almost certainly a timing condition, where the OneDrive cloud storage provider isn't (yet) ready at the moment when some automatic action (such as a launch-at-login program goes to re-open a file, stored on OneDrive, that had been open when the user last was logged in, after a restart).

The bigger problem of course is that Microsoft doesn't adequately engineer the tremendous complexity of its systems. Storage providers should be blocking pre-requisites before user-facing programs are allowed to execute to the point of needing something that's not yet available to them. (Application writers could accommodate this, and that's not a bad idea, but it shouldn't happen regularly like this - that's still on Microsoft).