[Batch] Restart explorer script

[Spiritreader]

Info

Please check out the responses below for more fine grained control of the explorer restart procecure.

What is this?

With this custom script you can automatically restart explorer when the theme switches.
This is intrusive and I don't recommend doing this, but here's the script nonetheless.
ALL of your explorer windows will close and will not re-open automatically.
Active copy processes may abort.

Script

taskkill /f /IM explorer.exe

start explorer.exe

exit

Save as restart_explorer.bat or whatever you prefer.

How should I set this up in the ADM scripts file?

Example ADM scripts configuration:

Enabled: true
Component:
  Scripts:
  - Name: RestartExplorer
    Command: {YOUR_PATH_TO_THE_SCRIPT}\restart_explorer.bat
    AllowedSources: [Any]

Change the {YOUR_PATH_TO_THE_SCRIPT} placeholder to the location where your script resides at.

That's it.

You can find more info on how to configure ADM scripts here:
https://github.com/AutoDarkMode/Windows-Auto-Night-Mode/wiki/How-to-add-custom-scripts

Disclaimer

This script comes with ABSOLUTELY NO WARRANTY
This is free software, and you are welcome to redistribute and modify it however you like.

THE SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED "AS IS", WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR
IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO THE WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY,
FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE AND NONINFRINGEMENT. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE
AUTHORS OR COPYRIGHT HOLDERS BE LIABLE FOR ANY CLAIM, DAMAGES OR OTHER
LIABILITY, WHETHER IN AN ACTION OF CONTRACT, TORT OR OTHERWISE, ARISING FROM,
OUT OF OR IN CONNECTION WITH THE SOFTWARE OR THE USE OR OTHER DEALINGS IN THE
SOFTWARE.

[faeinthebay]

I made a better version of the script that shows a dialog asking to restart Explorer. It's a one-liner, so no script file is needed. But you need Powershell and VBScript (they're enabled by default in Windows 8+). Just paste the snippet into scripts.yaml, set WorkingDirectory to a valid directory, and make sure you enable scripts at the top of the file.

  - Name: Prompt to restart Explorer on theme switch
    Command: powershell
    ArgsLight: [-command, "get-process | where-object {$_.MainWindowTitle -eq 'Restart Explorer after theme switch?'} | stop-process; If ($(New-Object -ComObject 'Wscript.Shell').Popup('Toggled to light mode. Close all Explorer processes and relaunch?',0,'Restart Explorer after theme switch?',4+32) -eq 6) {stop-process -name explorer –force; } Else {exit 0}"]
    ArgsDark: [-command, "get-process | where-object {$_.MainWindowTitle -eq 'Restart Explorer after theme switch?'} | stop-process; If ($(New-Object -ComObject 'Wscript.Shell').Popup('Toggled to dark mode. Close all Explorer processes and relaunch?',0,'Restart Explorer after theme switch?',4+32) -eq 6) {stop-process -name explorer –force; } Else {exit 0}"]
    AllowedSources: [TimeSwitchModule, NightLightTrackerModule, BatteryStatusChanged, SystemResume, Manual, ExternalThemeSwitch, SystemUnlock, Api]

Explanation:

• powershell -command will start a PowerShell process and run the quoted commands
• get-process ... stop-process; will kill any windows with the same title. I made the dialog title pretty unique, so it's unlikely to kill anything else. This is useful for unattended computers that might go through multiple theme switches before somebody sees the dialog.
• $(New-Object -ComObject 'Wscript.Shell') makes a VBScript/WScript shell, as an object
• Popup() is a method in VBScript to show a dialog box.
• 4+32 is Microsoft's janky way of instructing Popup() to make a windows with Yes/No buttons and a question mark icon.
• -eq 6 checks if the Yes button was pressed. If it was, the if-statement runs stop-process to kill explorer (which is automatically restarted).
• AllowedSources triggers the script from every event but system startup (since Explorer would already restart itself in that case).

I have edited this comment a few times to improve comments and remove WorkingDirectory (it doesn't work on some installations).

[wvzxn]

Here's a PowerShell code that restarts explorer.exe and then opens closed explorer windows.

Tested on: Windows 10 (build 19045.3448, x64, PowerShell v5.1)
Unfortunately, it is not yet possible to open a single window with multiple tabs (Windows 11).

UPDATE: v2

• Fixed duplicating tabs

  Sometimes ADM triggers can run the script multiple times.
  To avoid this, you should specify a specific one in AllowedSources.
  But I recommend using a main launcher script, which suspends all duplicate instances
  and helps to organize launching other scripts: My example

• Fixed unintended opening of This PC after restarting

  This comes after taskkill.exe /f /im explorer.exe.
  Stop-Process -ProcessName explorer -Force does restart more smoothly, faster, and without annoying windows.

Function

function RestartExplorer
{
    $openTabs = @()
    (New-Object -ComObject Shell.Application).Windows() | ForEach-Object { $openTabs += $_.Document.Folder.Self.Path }
    Stop-Process -ProcessName explorer -Force
    Start-Sleep 2
    $openTabs | ForEach-Object { Start-Process explorer.exe $_ -WindowStyle Minimized }
}

One-liner

$t=@();(New-Object -co Shell.Application).Windows()|%{$t+=$_.Document.Folder.Self.Path};kill -proc explorer -for;sleep 2;$t|%{start explorer $_ -win min}

In scripts.yaml

- Name: Restart explorer.exe and save opened tabs
  Command: powershell
  ArgsLight: [-c, "$t=@();(New-Object -co Shell.Application).Windows()|%{$t+=$_.Document.Folder.Self.Path};kill -proc explorer -for;sleep 2;$t|%{start explorer $_ -win min}"]
  ArgsDark: [-c, "$t=@();(New-Object -co Shell.Application).Windows()|%{$t+=$_.Document.Folder.Self.Path};kill -proc explorer -for;sleep 2;$t|%{start explorer $_ -win min}"]
  AllowedSources: [Any]

---

Old versions

v1:

Function:

function RestartExplorer
{
    $openTabs = (New-Object -ComObject 'Shell.Application').Windows() | ForEach-Object { ($_.Document.Folder.Self.Path) }
    taskkill.exe /f /im explorer.exe
    Start-Sleep 1
    Start-Process explorer.exe
    $openTabs | ForEach-Object { Start-Process explorer.exe $_ -WindowStyle Minimized }
}

One-liner:

$t=(New-Object -ComObject 'Shell.Application').Windows()|%{($_.Document.Folder.Self.Path)};taskkill.exe /f /im explorer.exe;sleep 1;start explorer.exe;$t|%{start explorer.exe $_ -windowstyle minimized}

As script in scripts.yaml

- Name: Restart explorer.exe and save opened tabs
  Command: powershell
  ArgsLight: [-c, "$t=(New-Object -ComObject 'Shell.Application').Windows()|%{($_.Document.Folder.Self.Path)};taskkill.exe /f /im explorer.exe;sleep 1;start explorer.exe;$t|%{start explorer.exe $_ -windowstyle minimized}"]
  ArgsDark: [-c, "$t=(New-Object -ComObject 'Shell.Application').Windows()|%{($_.Document.Folder.Self.Path)};taskkill.exe /f /im explorer.exe;sleep 1;start explorer.exe;$t|%{start explorer.exe $_ -windowstyle minimized}"]
  AllowedSources: [Any]