So I finally got my shiny new Win 7 PC yesterday (awwww yeah!) and I've been frantically installing all my games and such. I fully expected some of my older stuff to have issues running, but I was not anticipating the number of problems many titles have with Games Explorer. Far too many of my games seem to fail to register properly (14 GOGs alone ended up "Unspecified") or don't register at all (too many to list). It seems like Games Explorer was a nice idea that MS never bothered to finish implementing. I'd really like to be able to use Games Explorer as a "one stop shop" for everything I possibly can, but unless I can fix these issues, it is fairly useless. I did some Googling about the problem, but my Google-fu seems to be letting me down today. I did find this thread on GOG about the "Unspecified" issue, but the fix doesn't really apply (first few games I tried to fix don't even have the listed DLL). I also found a site with a GE editor, but it is no longer maintained and apparently later updates to Win 7 broke it anyway. So does anyone know of an easy way to edit/fix the Games Explorer?

This is probably not what you're looking for, but, you're better off leaving Games Explorer behind. While it is a nice feature, it is not very well supported and many of the games just either leave non-working shortcuts or provide outdated info.

About GOG-specific problems, these can be fixed if GOG update their installers.

But let's get to the problem.

REGISTRY\HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\GameUX\Games holds all entries for Games Explorer. You can delete them from here, and they will be removed from GE. You can also modify them.

C:\Users\YOURWINDOWSUSERNAME\AppData\Local\Microsoft\Windows\GamesExplorer should also hold all entries of Games Explorer that you have launched at least once.

Also, take a look here for a bit more information on how to add/modify shortcuts.

I use my GE all the time. To add things I use this: http://gameeditor.webnode.com/

And for all other things I use this: http://www.techpowerup.com/forums/showthread.php?t=136961

By the way, GOG games not getting added to it properly are actually GOG's fault. :P

"It also appears that Windows 8 will not use a Game Explorer but will instead use something along the lines of the XBOX LIVE application found on Windows Phone 7 (in the metro interface)."

Actually, Windows 8 has Games Explorer, but it is not very exposed in the Consumer Preview version. Release Preview is out in a week or two, we'll see what the future for GE holds.

That's the editor that supposedly no longer works or is maintained. From that site's main page:

"Please note that there appears to have been a Windows Update and other scenarios that prevents VGEE working on the latest Windows 7 systems (particularly 64-bit and non-English versions). You may wish to find another tool for this purpose. I have not worked on this software for a number of years and do not have time to continue supporting it any more." Looks good, I'll definitely give it a shot. Yeah, I know that now, but with the number of problems I've had with GE in general, assuming it was to blame for the GOG issues was only natural.

I'm on fully up to date Windows 7 and it still works (for me, YMMV) for adding games, which is something the other one I linked to can't do for some reason. Once the game is added, you can do things like edit shortcuts using the second program.

If you right click on the game and click "Browse Explorer" then it takes you to the folder where the shortcut for that game is actually stored. There are PlayTasks and SupportTasks, and in those folders there can be folders 0-5 (I think that's the max).
If you put shortcuts in those then they will appear as options for that game in the GE.
0 in PlayTasks is the default action that you get by double clicking and all the others can be accessed by right clicking (I use SupportTasks for config programs and manuals, PlayTasks for alternative launch options and so on.

EDIT: My GE now looks like this and doesn't require any maintenance, just adding new games to it (which you'd have to do with any other kind of manager).

I can install it fine, but when I try running it, it doesn't find any games in GE, despite the fact that there are actually tons there. It won't even let me run the initial setup wizard.

That's because it requires a game that Windows has added itself. I'm pretty sure it says that in the readme.

I understand that, but there are already dozens of games that Windows has added on its own, it just thinks there aren't any for some reason.

Ones that Windows added itself or ones that were automatically added during install? There's a big difference. It has to be a game that predates Vista but it pretty well known for Windows to add it itself.
Baldur's Gate is the one I use. I deleted GOG's screwed up entry, ran the game and it was added to the GE by Windows. I then selected this in the VGEE, hope that helps.

Yup, tried that. I just deleted all of the entries in GE (too many of them were screwed up anyway) , ran Baldur's Gate, GE detected it, but VGE still thinks I don't have any games. Perhaps this is the app breaking error the Win 7 updates caused?

Except my Windows 7 is up to date and I used it less than a week ago. I don't have any more suggestions though, sorry.

Okay, this has been the most frustrating aspect of adapting to Win 7 and I'm ready to give up on it. I've tried probably a dozen different methods of correcting the errors with GE, even going so far as to create my own GDFs for broken titles, which worked great until my son logged on and all the corrected titles were listed as "blocked" under his GE. I don't have the patience to try to figure this out anymore, so instead, does anyone have any suggestions for alternatives to GE that have similar functionality with a simple interface? I have way too many games installed to rely on Win 7's awkward Start menu (games get lost in there all the time) and I'd like something with a strait-forward interface that will detect my games automatically (preferably), allows me to browse my library and launch games directly. I've used GCStar for this on Win XP before, but I do not relish the idea of trying to manually rebuild my entire database for my new machine, so I would prefer something with a bit more automation.