[ChoGGi]

This might be a place for an answer.

I've completely disabled explorer.exe from running; among other things it disables the win11 openwith dialog from opening. Replacing with the win10 onew orks, but it'll regularly be replaced with the 11 one by Windows. Any solutions?

[joe_mamba]

Windows 11 has not been built to officially supporting that type of UI customisation out of the box, you're relying on hacks for that, not using official APIs.

So since every major Windows update functions as a core OS reinstall, your hacked setup will be restored to a clean slate.

You have two choices: Accept this limitation or move to another OS, there's no in-between.