A Windows bug triggered by Video CDs causes Explorer to hang during file copies and leaves the shell in a broken state until a hard reboot. When copying a VCD (the large _MPEGAV_/.DAT content) the transfer often slows to zero; closing the copy window and ejecting the disc doesn't restore normal behavior. Symptoms include invisible new files until manual refresh, graphical glitches, inability to restart the Explorer process, and an inability to perform a normal soft restart - Windows remains stuck at "Restarting" so a physical restart is required. The issue first appeared after the March 2023 and April 2023 monthly updates (KB5023706 for Windows 11 and KB5025221 for Windows 10); clean 22H2 installs before those updates do not show the bug. VMware Workstation VMs reproduce the problem reliably for testing, and mounting VCD images with Alcohol 120% often reproduces it as well.
The failure is tied to how VCDs are represented: they look like iso9660 but include an ISO gateway .DAT track that Windows emulates as a file, whereas other systems prevent raw copying. Copying via Explorer can produce non-identical, error-filled .dat files; playing the VCD in Windows Media Player, using dedicated rippers like VCDGear, or using third-party copyers that bypass the standard Windows copy API (FastCopy, TeraCopy) do not trigger the bug. Total Commander can trigger it when using Windows’ native copy. The issue was reported to Microsoft via Feedback Hub at the end of 2025 with no public response; practical workarounds are to use dedicated extraction tools or image the disc to bin+cue.
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