Explorer windows won't load after a startup recovery

[lifemare]

[Solved] Explorer windows won't load after a startup recovery

I was just watching a video on Youtube when out of nowhere the sound freezes in a loop and i get a BSOD (first time in years!) with a PFN_LIST_CORRUPT error.

I try to reboot, but it hangs everytime. So i try a startup recovery and finally return to my desktop, only to find my system is completely glitched. The theme is all wrong, explorer windows won't load, aswell as many system dialogs that depend on explorer to display them. EDIT: I'm still however perfectly able to navigate folders using the save dialogs in Firefox or Chrome.

Run SFC - nothing changes. Try to run a system restore, but whatever happened between the BSOD and the startup recovery also ate up all my restore points D:

I've been using this system for years now. Everything is customized to my taste and running as smoothly
as i can wish for. I'd rather install an Explorer alternative like Total Commander and run it on top of this garbage than even consider a format.....

Please tell me there's a way to fix this!

 

[lifemare]

I was convinced this was a theming issue, since the folder system, desktop and save dialogs were still perfectly functional. So i started restoring shell dlls (imageres, shell32, shellstyle), but the problem persisted. Until it finally dawned on me i'd used a little program called UltraUX (a long time ago) to hack themeui, uxinit and uxtheme dlls (to allow for more advanced theme customization). Everything is back to working condition after repatching those files.

Leaving this here in case someone else runs into the same issue.