Windows 11 boot loop with CRITICAL_PROCESS_DIED after uninstalling theme mods, drive is healthy and files intact

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MSI Vector 16 HX AI (A2XWHG-600NL), Windows 11. Stuck in a CRITICAL_PROCESS_DIED boot loop. Startup Repair reports 0 root causes and the log has nothing. How I caused it: I was setting up a macOS look for Windows and installed Windhawk, Rainmeter, JaxCore, Settings Styler, a macOS theme, top bar, widgets, and a theme patcher. Then I undid it in the wrong order: **1.** Made a restore point **2.** Installed all the mods **3.** Rolled back to the restore point **4.** Then disabled the mods in their apps and uninstalled the programs So the uninstall ran against a system that had already been rolled back. It worked fine for a full day, then boot loop. Setup notes: VMD is enabled in BIOS, so the install USB can’t see the SSD until I run drvload C:\iaStorVD.inf each session. In recovery the letters are USB = C:, Windows = D:. Everything below was done offline from the USB command prompt. What I’ve tried: **•** chkdsk on both volumes: clean, 0 bad sectors, files all intact **•** Found Riot Vanguard (vgk/vgc) active, set Start=4 in the offline SYSTEM hive. Confirmed ControlSet001 is the active set. No change **•** No Windhawk service present **•** Offline SFC and DISM both fail. DISM returns “Failed to open key …CurrentVersion”, 0x80070002 **•** Replaced uxtheme.dll and themeui.dll with clean WinSxS copies. No change **•** No PendingFileRenameOperations, FileRenameOperations subkey is empty **•** Winlogon Shell, Userinit and AppInit\_DLLs all return “not found” when I query the mounted SOFTWARE hive, but the hive is 127 MB and SYSTEM is 50 MB, so both look healthy. Probably a WinPE reg.exe quirk **•** RegBack is completely empty, so no registry restore available I also disabled auto-repair early with recoveryenabled No and bootstatuspolicy ignoreallfailures, which still needs reversing. No spare drive, so I can’t back up my user folder, and I’d rather not reset. Any ideas on what a theme patcher could leave behind that survives a System Restore and kills boot a day later?

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