Windows 10 - Created shortcut to "This PC" now explorer.exe crashes+

Hello,

New to the forum, thank you for taking the time to look here. I just recently got Windows 10 64-bit and have been going through trying to make the transition less painful as I was previously using Windows 7. One thing I missed was the "My Computer" shortcut from the start menu. A friend of mine who uses 10 gave me a shortcut with a path that would lead to Windows 10 "This PC" that I could then use in the start menu as a work around. Long and short is that it worked... but it broke a LOT of other things... hope someone can point me in the right direction before I have to do a clean install 2 days after getting getting set up. The details:

The shortcut path to "This PC":
C:\WINDOWS\explorer.exe /root,,::{20D04FE0-3AEA-1069-A2D8-08002B30309D}

What it broke: (that I know of so far)
"This PC" now displays duplicate folders in the left navigation pane for all of the default library files. Music, Pictures, Downloads, Documents, and Videos. In addition, every hard drive I click to access now opens in a separate window, twice.
If that wasn't enough, I cannot change any icons for any folders/shortcuts, as this causes explorer/task bar to crash and reload, nor can I save an image from the Paint App, as I found out when I went to make a screen shot, as saving a .png file to my desktop caused the explorer.exe to crash and refresh itself. (It will also just crash by itself if left alone.)

What I've done:
I've ran sfc /scannow (no errors) and DISM.exe in hopes of fixing ...anything. Both with no success.
I no longer have any of the shortcuts anywhere, they do not exist on my system.

Here is the last Explorer.exe crash from my Event Viewer:

Faulting application name: Explorer.EXE, version: 10.0.16299.192, time stamp: 0x494a4408
Faulting module name: windows.storage.dll, version: 10.0.16299.192, time stamp: 0xcc554512
Exception code: 0xc000041d
Fault offset: 0x000000000010023a
Faulting process id: 0x15f8
Faulting application start time: 0x01d397175e8a417f
Faulting application path: C:\Windows\Explorer.EXE
Faulting module path: C:\Windows\System32\windows.storage.dll
Report Id: da664093-0f93-4137-b00a-2a2c2b5ef701
Faulting package full name:
Faulting package-relative application ID:

Thank you again for reading this spiel, and feel free to let me know if there is anything else I can provide to help anyone figure out what is going on.

If I do have to resort to a fresh install, I guess lesson learned... Windows 10... don't try to customize, just take it in the a-
---Kuro

Hello Brink,

Thank you for the quick reply. I've tried out the shortcut paths you pointed out and they work great! Thing is, I am still seeing duplicates (randomly) and experiencing explorer.exe crashing and multiple windows opening upon accessing any drive/folder from "This PC".

Could it be unrelated and only happened to start at the same time I tried the shortcut? Also the crashing happens on any attempt at saving files (from the web or through applications.) I'm just not sure what to do with it anymore.

-Kuro

Opening File Explorer from the start menu works fine, all folders open normally within with the exception of...

All folders on the side navigation under "This PC" opens in a new window (only one instance this time) and has duplicate folders in their side navigation's.

When setting File Explorer to open to "This PC" (from your first post) it opens one instance as it should, with no duplicate folders in the side pane, but it still acts as it does when opening it from the desktop icon (I have that enabled), where any navigation to hard drives/folders from "This PC" results in 1-2 new windows.
-Kuro

I've restarted the explorer.exe process using the .reg files from the 2nd tutorial link. Unfortunately the problem still persists on my end.

I'm running 1709 Build 16299.192 - Thank you very much for all your help so far.