Explorer crash loop prevents boot to desktop

The “Moment 2” feature update caused explorer.exe to crash-loop on startup, preventing systems from ever reaching the desktop. The shell would start, crash, restart, crash — an infinite loop that left users staring at a blank screen forever. Systems running UI customization tools like ExplorerPatcher, StartAllBack, or Start11 were the primary victims. Microsoft warned about the issue but shipped the update anyway, leaving users to discover their PCs wouldn’t boot to a usable state after a routine Windows Update.