How to suppress the manubar in explorer

[ceo54]

Hello,

On Windows 11 Explorer, enabling the legacy command infrastructure (via StartAllBack or Open-Shell) causes Explorer to permanently instantiate a top command surface.

Once this happens, reverting to stock Win11 binaries does not remove the bar — Explorer continues to allocate the command host, which is then rendered using the Win11 WinUI CommandBar.

Key observations:

The bar is not drawn by StartAllBack or Open-Shell

Swapping Win10 explorerframe.dll breaks the nav pane but does not remove the bar

shellstyle.dll hacks (height=0) no longer apply

This confirms the surface exists independently of explorerframe and classic theming

I’m not trying to stop legacy commands from being registered — I’m looking for a way to suppress or collapse the WinUI CommandBar host (height/visibility/layout), even if the surface itself still exists.

Does anyone know:

which component owns the WinUI CommandBar layout for Explorer?

or whether it’s possible to force-collapse it (analogous to shellstyle hacks in Win7–10)?

Any pointers (symbols, classes, binaries) would be appreciated.

Edited 11 hours ago by ceo54