It took me a while to fix the problem and I don't know if my method is the best but I would like to share the problem I discovered on my fully patched Windows 11 Home 22H2 (French version) as it might help someone else. Maybe someone familiar with Windows internals could explain us the real problem? My laptop is brand new and the USB interfaces work like a charm but after using windows11debloater v1.9 to get rid of a lot of stuff, I couldn't eject any USB HDD/SDD or thumb drive anymore. The icon on the notification is visible but no popup on it. If I run C:\Windows\System32\rundll32.exe shell32.dll,Control_RunDLL hotplug.dll the program tells me that my media is not removable but it is still recognized as removable when I check drivers/devices . After a while, I realized that if I created a new user the problem disappeared for this login. Finally, after many attempts, I isolated the problem: It seems to be on Telemetry where a “guilty” key is created by the following PS command Set-ItemProperty -Path "HKCU:\Control Panel\Desktop" -Name "HungAppTimeout" -Type DWord - Value 4000 Once I run this PS command I get this eject denial. And worse, it's not possible to use windows11debloater to roll back because the value is just changed to 5000 and not removed. If I erase the key (+ logout/relogin) It restarts to work!!. To erase the key, I use the PS command: Remove-ItemProperty -Path "HKCU:\Control Panel\Desktop" -Name "HungAppTimeout" BTW: This is not a "side effect" with the other changes made by windows11debloater. I tried running this PS command only on a new user login and the problem occurs and using my "fix" it went away.
Pretty certain he is talking about MDL member @Davidgamerthumbs' FreeTimeTech Software Perhaps it is worth mentioning to @Ufomula that said same member produces the wrapper (GUI Frontend) for @farag's Sophia Script (also here at MDL), a more comprehensive solution... along the same theme
Used Privatezilla on Windows 11 to disable telemetry, etc. After rebooting, Explorer does not open on version 23440, 23451 on another version 22624 all ok. Very unclear why explorer stops working and also Control Panel does not open. If you create another user, the explorer works. I suggest using WhatChanged or its registry modification analogues. (1.The problem appeared 2.Created a new user 3. Made a snapshot of the registry. 4. Figured out what changes were made to the registry 5. Make those changes on the inoperable computer). Logically, everything should work.
To be honest, I'm now pretty sure that I haven't used the best tool to clean my new Win11 system, but there are so many... (at least there are about 6 described in this forum.. .). I think the only thing to keep in mind is the behavior of this registry key - no more. Next time I will use this "Sophia Script" which seems easier to use.;-) - thanks for the link
I have set the value to 25000, because if the value is too low, Windows assumes that the app has crashed and it closes it or any related process tree. Eject process can take more than 5 secs from the start to finish.