This is absolutely the workaround that can get you playing the game again. Thank you for posting this. I really suggest trying this if you're having this problem. Here are a few suggestions:
-Before you do ANYthing, use winzip or 7zip to create backup archives of both those files! If they get mixed up you may need to reinstall the game.
-Next, I would HIGHLY suggest making a copy of your \Saves directory, just in case.
-He forgot to mention one thing, if you only rename platform_rdwin7_f.dll then the game is going to complain about a missing file. You need to first COPY platform_rdwin7_f.dll and then you should rename the COPY so that it overwrites platform_rdwin10_f.dll
-Put the files back after you beat this mission.
-It works for both the original campaign mission "The Enemy Within" and the SHUM2:The Anchor version.

Yup this finally did it. After trying all the other solutions on this thread and reddit. I can't believe we're still having this problem in July 2022. Either the devs or GOG need to have a patch for this.

Hi everybody. I read and tried different solutions, and alone they didn't work.
I only managed to unlock the situation and avoid crashes doing this (I don't know if everything is mandatory or not):

- start the game with "Direct X 11" mode
- I enabled the "One shot kill" in the accessibility options to have the chance to beat it before a freeze
- in the graphical options, I switched to windowed mode (lowest resolution), with minimum settings for everything
- I didn't lower the audio volume!
- I made a try, then it stuck again, so I restarted the game (still in windowed mode, Direct X 11)
- once in the main menu, I set the CPU Cores affinity with Control_dx11.exe to only Core 0 and 1, then I loaded my save and I saw the game framerate was low/unstable, so I paused, set the CPU Cores affinity to Core 0,1,2 & 3, then unpaused
- I went to face the boss again, went to the right edge of the arena and then it didn't freeze!

After beating it with one shot (I'm sad I had to, but not so much considering this damn game glitch) I exited the room and then I restored all my graphical settings like they were before.

I hope this can help anybody who's going crazy with this absurd problem.

Thanks to everyone who gave solutions, mine was directly using the Control DX11 exe from the game folder and not through the shortcut on desktop that lets you pick.

The only thing that works is to not let the boss strike an enemy with its clock attack. Kill them first.
Everybody else in this thread is just posting the last thing they tried before finally achieving that.

I think i tried everything found in this thread, but still the game freezes and then close the same moment the boss open its "mouth" and spew out.
My only choice left is just to move away from that room and forget about this Anchor...

Reference this post

This worked for me. So I had an unusual tshoot process, as I attempted this procedure first, but with no success:

I reverted back to the original 10_f.dll file. Then, by using the charge weapon(The Rocket launcher), Speed velocity upgrade, a Blast radius upgrade and a damage booster, I was able to take out the hiss very quickly. They start to float after the initial spawns, but if you shoot in the direction as soon as they are spawning you'll land hits, and it pretty much kills them instantly. I think after like the first 2 to 3 take outs of the hiss, the bug clears itself. As I would miss some shots and they would be right in the path of the AI. Not sure if reverting back to the original dll file made it work or not. Keeping the hiss away for about 1 minute might do the trick.

In my case, after taking out the first wave of hiss the AI is supposed to kill, -- dying or crashing afterward -- those hiss never spawned back into that location. So you get some breathing room attempting to fight the AI if you have to do it over again.

Setup

AMD 5950X
64GB DDR4
Nvidia 3080 Ti
2x 2GB NVMe in RAID0
Windows 10 Pro (21H2)
Game Installation Type: Offline / Not using GOG Galaxy or cloud services
Game Settings: DX12 switch with everything maxed out/including RT @ 2560x1440 / 27" 165Hz Monitor

Nearly 2 years later and this problem has not been solved. :( Not good enough!

For me I needed to set resolution to 640x480, all graphics options or low or off, mute all sound, set compatibility mode to vista, disable full screen optimisations (compatibility) and even then I needed to rush the boss to ensure it was done as quickly as possible. Thankfully the boss is on the easier side.

Fun note, at this low a resolution the aiming recital on the gun does not work. You can not hit anything. I ended up just throwing stuff at the floaters to keep them off while I waited for the boss to open its gob so I could throw something in it.

Yep, I'm playing the game for the first time and it's doing the same to me. I've tried several of the suggestions - disable control flow guard, compatibility mode, disable fullscreen optimizations, turn down all video settings and disable all audio, etc.

I can't even get to the point where I can shoot him. He rises, it plays that rising sound (if I have sound enabled) and it crashes every time. Even if I turn on one-shot kill mode, I never get the chance.

Guess I'll just forget about that boss, it's not worth more time. This game actually crashes fairly regularly on me, this is the repeatable one I can't get past though.

I was playing the game on my secondary drive (which is an HDD), and before crashing, I were noticing several stutters.

I solved the issue by playing the game from an SSD, which eliminated every stutter so far and made me complete the boss fight

This is ridiculous! We should not be troubleshooting ways for this game not to CRASH from an issue that has been brought up over 2 years ago! Steam and GOG have numerous accounts of this problem and 505 can't be bothered to fix their broken game. Laziness and disregard for the consumer, shows exactly where their priorities lie..

This is what worked for me! Tried eveything else. THANKS!!

I don't know if it was just a coincidence, but I could not finish the fight with the cores assigned to the first four cores in several attempts. But when I assigned them to Core 0, 2, 4, 6, I finished the mission in the first attempt I managed to survive. So maybe it could be an issue with SMT/Hyper-Threading.
I use an 5800X3D and a 6800XT.

It's a shame this crash still hasn't been fixed. Fortunately, setting affinity worked for me. I tried different numbers of cores/threads 4, 6, 8, 12 and the game allowed me to fight with Anchor on every setup. It seems Control just doesn't like using all CPU cores/threads here and anything less than maximum works.

Setting affinity to cores 0,1,2,3 actually fixed the problem for me, no other options had to be changes in or out of the game. Tried using less cores but it stuttered like hell. Some report that cores 0,2,4,6 should be enabled. As was mentioned, looks like it's SMT related. I think AMD and Intel report their SMT/HT cores differently., so try using these per CPU you have:
AMD: 0,1,2,3
Intel: 0,2,4,6