When removing "OneCore UAP Common Proxy Stub - 32 bit" programs cannot open links in default browser

AeonX

Well-Known Member
When this component is removed programs at the end of the installation cannot open links in the browser.

Tested with Greenshot and uTorrent in version 21H1.

Greenshot at the end of the installation shows this error:
error.png

And uTorrent at the end of the installation would normally open a website and start the program but simply close the installation window without doing anything.

These 2 cases in themselves are not big problems but my concern is if this could cause more serious problems in other programs.

Is this expected?

In the component notes it says "Required for marshalling, among other things triggering link opening from apps."

To me "apps" would mean UWP apps.
 
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Well, sorry to resurrect this thread, but I just wanted to thank the author for saving me a lot of time testing hundreds of settings.

I can confirm this component is crucial for many applications when clicking hyperlinks, not only UWP apps. In fact, I don't use UWP apps at all.

Symptoms can be:

- Some apps work normally, hyperlinks work
- Some apps crash when clicking hyperlinks
- Some apps do nothing when clicking hyperlinks (does not open anything, but does not crash either)

This can be extremely annoying when apps rely on online accounts.
 

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OneCore UAP is required for UWP apps, but it also supports the Edge HTML (rendering) engine. URL handling is passed thru Edge libraries, even if you don't use Edge browser. This was the same reason for keeping IE libraries when IE11 was the default.

When normal apps open a link, they pass a URI reference to Windows and expect whatever browser is installed to do the rest. This stops working if the URI handlers are uninstalled. The general rule is if something's a library, and not a running service, leave it alone.

OneCore to rule them all: How Windows Everywhere finally happened
ModernCore was expanded into OneCore UAP ("Universal App Platform"): the common components that provide support for Universal Windows Apps and Universal Windows Drivers. For apps it includes the Edge HTML engine, Cortana, DirectX graphics, and CoreCLR (a stripped-down version of .NET). For drivers, it includes the runtimes for USB, NFC, and Bluetooth drivers, and smartphone or tablet sensors.
 
not only UWP apps.
I think that's the point, a change in the component description I think solves the "issue".

One thing I didn't mention is that the problem probably only occurs in 32-bit programs. uTorrent so far is only 32bit (I use qBittorrent anyway) and Greenshot is 64bit but its installer is 32bit.
 
I peeked on Greenshot's support board, bug reports confirm it's based on URI passing. So arch makes no difference.
 
I peeked on Greenshot's support board, bug reports confirm it's based on URI passing. So arch makes no difference.
NTLite only allows you to remove the 32-bit part of OneCore UAP. The 64-bit part isn't even shown probably because it should cause problems. So I thought that this component was related to 32-bit programs.
 
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