Explorer.exe high CPU usage after latest update, Win11

Anonymous
2022-02-17T10:11:19+00:00

I am running Windows 11 Pro 64 bit version 21H2, build 22000.527.

After the latest update explorer.exe started to grab occasionally about 20% to 50% CPU power. Upon this high CPU time taskbar does not work, applications already on the desktop work though.

I have checked the desktop folder for any files missing the icon and I have also disabled OneDrive, did not help.

This problem is on almost all the time. It easies down occasionally but starts again. If I have the computer locked and log in again the problem starts immediately.

I do have some applications in desktop right button menu but they were there before the update without any problem(7-zip, WinZIP, NitroPDF etc).

This is quite annoying and prevents me working with the PC. The computer is Lenovo Thinkbook with 11th Gen Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-1165G7 @ 2.80GHz 2.80 GHz and 16 GB RAM.

Should I try to uninstall the latest update and is there a change that it messes up the operating system?

Windows for home | Windows 11 | Performance and system failures

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  1. Anonymous
    2022-03-17T14:27:49+00:00

    Shawn,

    You uninstall from the Windows Update > Update history. Scroll to the bottom and select "Uninstall updates". It will open an a window where you can select the CUM and uninstall it.

    Thanks for the feedback. That is the place I was already at to uninstall. Some of the items do not give an option to uninstall, including this one. That is the list of updates I was talking about.

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  2. Anonymous
    2022-03-18T10:48:37+00:00

    After recreating my profile everything seemed to work properly....but after a while I noticed that same thing with explorer.exe happened, but quite rarely.

    During explorer.exe high CPU the taskbar was frozen and sometimes this took couple of minutes and after the CPU usage with explorer.exe went down the taskbar started to work again.

    For the last resort I removed "automatically hide taskbar" and after that I have had zero problems.

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  3. Anonymous
    2022-03-18T11:24:44+00:00

    I recreated my profile yesterday and so far the problem isn't happening in this new profile. I do happen to use Autohide Taskbar, but in the broken profile when I turned that off it didn't stop the issue from happening. I'll hope that it stays fixed in the new profile. Thanks for the info and tip.

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  4. Anonymous
    2022-03-21T14:23:24+00:00

    I recreated my profile yesterday and so far the problem isn't happening in this new profile. I do happen to use Autohide Taskbar, but in the broken profile when I turned that off it didn't stop the issue from happening. I'll hope that it stays fixed in the new profile. Thanks for the info and tip.

    Well as it turns out, this issue is happening in the new profile too.

    Hoping for a Windows Update to fix this ASAP.

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  5. Anonymous
    2022-03-24T23:49:44+00:00

    I got the same problem, after uninstalled KB5020414 the problem is gone.

    So running also my PC with KB5020414 uninstalled. It did start to install the KB5011493 but I froze the update for a month waiting for a solution.

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