New Windows 11 file explorer can't drag and drop in address bar

The file dialogs on Windows 11 remain pretty much unchanged from Windows 10. They use the same code base as the Windows 10 Explorer. The current Windows 11 Explorer is a new code base built on Microsoft's App SDK. Unfortunately, in that move, they've neglected to replicate the full functionality of the older Explorer.

If you don't mind loosing tabs, I recommend boycotting the new Explorer. Use the old Windows 10 version instead. You can do that with a simple set of registry settings, or use my free SwitchExplorer tool to make the settings for you.

Drag and drop was not removed, just disabled. If you go to any program that can open file, you can see it still works in the "opening" window. You forgot to disable it across the board. 😉

Are there people from the dev team that monitor this? Any updates about adding back the feat of drag and drop. This is really a sad change that happened.

Have a great day.

Wow!! Thank you so much. I'll give the SwitchExplorer tool a whirl. I really appreciate it. The changes to Windows 11 (the "strategy" of moving everything under submenus) is ridiculous. Give us a way to unclutter the context/right-click menus, but don't make multiple clicks necessary to do the most obvious actions. Grr!

:)

Thanks for letting me vent. I'll look forward to trying out the SwitchExplorer tool tomorrow!

Makes me wish I knew how to revert to WIndows 10. I went kicking and screaming to Win11 as it is, and now I have even more reason to hate it.

Thanks for your input. I only updated my work machine (the one that works with drag/drop) to Win11 because the job required it. Otherwise I'd be happy with WIndows 10.

I also went kicking and screaming from WIndows 7 on another personal machine. Too many legacy hardware devices don't work with anything newer. I hate having to repurchase new hardware to replace devices that work fine except that Windows 8+ don't support them. On the whole Windows has been a disappointment since Win7 reached end of life.

I appreciate your feedback on this "little" WIndows malady.

I'm sticking with Windows 10 as my daily driver as long as security updates are free (currently Microsoft says until Oct 2025). I run Windows 11 only on VMs to test my software and to be able to answer questions about it.

You can certainly revert to Windows 10 (on personally owned machines) but it will require backing up your files, doing a clean install from USB drive, and then reinstall your applications and restore your data. It's your call on whether that's worth the trouble.

Since most of the Windows 11 deficiencies are to do with Explorer, you may be satisfied to switch Explorer to the Windows 10 version. You can use my free SwitchExplorer tool to do that. It doesn't install anything and will even work for a Standard (i.e. not administrator) user. It just sets a couple of user profile registry entries and restarts Explorer.