The latest W11 update (2026-05-13 KB5087051) has broken Dropbox and Windows Explorer

SpikyClip

Since this update, dropbox triggers a restart crash loop on explorer.exe, presumably because it is trying to load context menu stuff:

```
Faulting application name: Explorer.EXE, version: 10.0.26100.8457, time stamp: 0xf263d9e9
Faulting module name: ntdll.dll, version: 10.0.26100.8328, time stamp: 0x0022b8e0
Exception code: 0xc000041d
Fault offset: 0x00000000000283cc
Faulting process id: 0x376C
Faulting application start time: 0x1DCE31C7CED8E20
Faulting application path: C:\WINDOWS\Explorer.EXE
Faulting module path: C:\WINDOWS\SYSTEM32\ntdll.dll
Report Id: 8892d996-fb1f-41e9-ae40-69df17d70b07
Faulting package full name:
Faulting package-relative application ID:
```

I can reliably reproduce this bug by starting the app on my user account (which is logged in). After 30 seconds, the explorer bar disappears and reappears as it crashes in a loop. If I end the dropbox process the crashes stop. Notably, this does not happen in my other account on the computer, where dropbox is not signed in. I have a crash dump too if someone wants to take a look at it, but it was not very informative.

Anyway, this has completely bricked dropbox for me and I cannot get any work done. I have tried:

- Using the microsoft store version of dropbox
- Using the manual install version of dropbox
- Rolling back the windows update
- Installing all windows updates, including optional ones

Things I'm planning to try:
- Dropbox lite?

Versions:
```
Dropbox 252.4.3485.0

Windows:
Edition Windows 11 Home
Version 25H2
Installed on ‎27/‎04/‎2026
OS build 26200.8457
Experience Windows Feature Experience Pack 1000.26100.304.0
```

Is there any way to downgrade dropbox to get this to work, or remove all the explorer ****** so that it stops crashing explorer?

SpikyClip

Hi Hannah,

I got a email indicating that support was looking into it but no follow up. I think I solved the issue by:

1. Clean uninstall dropbox (as per the advanced reinstall instructions, but I completely deleted all the folders mentioned. Doubt this helped as the folders were mostly empty anyway).
2. Rename my dropbox folder to dropbox.bak (in case it didn't work and I still wanted a copy of my files)
3. Reinstall dropbox and resync all my files.

Note the bug didn't go away. Many times during the resync, explorer would crash, but it wasn't looping so much as it did before. I let it sync overnight, and whenever I had to do anything critical on the computer I'd exit dropbox so the crashing wouldn't annoy me. It's been two days since I've done this and seems like there's no issue. Perhaps the index was corrupted somehow, but that wouldn't explain why the crashing occurred with the resync too.