File Explorer In Windows 11....

By ESC@PE
in Tips, Tweaks & Customization

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Grand Master

goretsky Supervisor

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Hello,

The general things are to make sure you have all of the latest Windows Updates installed as well as various device drivers for the computer's hardware components (video card, storage devices, etc.), as these can make a difference.  It might be small differences, but they can add up. 

Case in point:  I was reading a while back about how in Windows 11 when you right-click on an object in File Explorer to bring up the context menu, it first enables to 3-D acceleration… to display a menu with text and maybe some 2-D icons.  Such behavior slows down the display of the context menu slightly.  If (and/or when) this gets fixed in Windows 11, context menus in File Explorer will appear much snappier.

A few things you can try, in no particular order:

  • Try toggling the full screen view of File Explorer on and off by pressing the F11 key twice.  This fixes another (different) bug like the one I mentioned above with Windows.  I don't recall if it has been fixed yet.
  • Open the File Explorer, and look at the Panes section.  Click on the Navigation Pane button, and uncheck all of the options you do not need, like Navigation Pane, Show all folders, Show This PC, Show Network and Show Libraries.  You can also deselect (uncheck) the Preview pane and Details pane.
  • In the Layout section, change the viewing option to either List or Details.
  • if you use the Quick Access section in the left pane of the File Explorer, unpin (remove) any mappings to network drives, plus anything else you do not need or regularly access.  If you do not use it at all, consider unpinning everything there.
  • In the File Explorer, select File → Options to bring up the Folder Options dialog and make the following changes:
    • On the General tab, set Open File Explorer to This PC and below it in the Privacy section, uncheck the various Show… options and click on the Clear button.
    • On the View tab, check the Always show icons, never thumbnails and the Launch folder windows in a separate process options. 
    • Also on the View tab, uncheck the Display file size information in folder tips, Display the full path in the title bar, Restore previous folder windows at logon, Show preview handlers in preview pane and all of the options in the Navigation pane section.
    • On the Search tab, scroll down the the When searching non-indexed locations section, and uncheck all of the items.
  • Go to Settings → Network & internet → Advanced network settings → Advanced sharing settings and select the Private networks section.  In there, set Network discovery to On, enable (check) Set up network connected devices automatically, and set File and printer sharing to On.  Do not make any changes to the Public networks or All networks sections.
  • Go to Settings → Privacy & security → Searching Windows and in the Find my files section, select (check) the Classic option.  
    • Under the Classic option, select the Customize search locations option.  The Indexing Options window will appear.  Click on the Modify button to show the Indexed Locations window.  Click on the Show all locations button.  In the Change selection locations section at the top, remove any entries that say ""This location is currently unavailable" in them.
    • Go back to the Indexing Options window, and click on the Advanced button.  The Advanced Options window will appear.  On the Index Settings tab, click the Rebuild tab.

Other things to consider:  If you upgraded from Windows 10 to Windows 11 and/or cloned your boot drive (from a HDD to a SSD or a SSD to another SSD), wiping it and performing a clean installation of Windows 11 may improve performance, as legacy settings from the older hardware will no longer be in place.  If you are still using a hard disk drive, upgrading to a solid state drive will provide a noticeable performance improvement to all operations that involve accessing the drive.

You can also try using third-party replacements for the Start Menu (Start 11, StartAllBack, etc.) and/or Windows File Explorer (Directory Opus, Double Commander, Explorer++, Files, FAR, Free Commander, Midnight Commander, Q-Dir, Total Commander, XYplorer ,etc.) to see if those perform better for you than Windows stock versions. 

I don't think changing the antivirus software would have any effect, but it is something you could try as well, just to see if it does make any difference.

Regards,

Aryeh Goretsky
 

  • xMorpheousx416 and Jose_49
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Grand Master

Jose_49

Posted
Posted
On 10/06/2025 at 13:59, ESC@PE said:

Its not the snappiest. Opening new folders takes a couple seconds to load. On my W10 machine its not like this.

What can I do to help make this snappier when browsing directories? Anything I can turn on/off to help this out?

Oh, another thing besides the kickass post @goretskyshared (Which I didn't know any of these optimizations, btw), there are times in which Windows may be optimizing your folder for images: 

 

  1. Right-click on an empty space in the folder.
  2. Click Properties.
  3. Go to the Customize tab.
  4. Under “Optimize this folder for:”, select General items from the dropdown.
  5. (Optional) Check “Also apply this template to all subfolders”.
  6. Click Apply, then OK.

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