Windows 11 file explorer is slow, lagging, hangs!

Anonymous
2022-11-06T07:07:24+00:00

Hi,

I have a very strong PC with Samsung 970 EVO Plus NVMe, Intel i7-9700K, 32GB Memory and ASUS ROG Strix Z390-H Gaming.
When my PC was on Windows 10 there was no problem with File Explorer but after upgrading to Windows 11 I am facing a problem with file explorer slow, lagging, hangs even when just renaming a file.
Only full PC restart is solving the problem for a short time.

How to solve this problem on windows 11 please?

Thanks,
AG

Windows for home | Windows 11 | Files, folders, and storage

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Anonymous
2022-11-28T14:17:19+00:00

I also experienced Lags with the Explorer:

  1. On Windows 10, i could solve them by removing external file-drives (SMB) from Quick-Access. I created a folder with Links to the drives instead and explorer was fast again. Probably the explorer tried to connect to these drives and for some reason failed, even though the connection was up and working.
  2. On Windows 11 on a new computer i have again troubles with the explorer, this time i think it is due to a wrong/old account which is no longer active:
    Image The problems came with the "Home"-Button, which was added at some point. Also the "Please sign in" only shows when selecting the "Home"-Button.

This might also be related to an account i am unable to remove:
Image
Clicking on 'Manage' opens the login-page for the first account and i can not find the old account in the first account to remove it.

Can your problem also be associated with one of the issues above?

Does anyone know how to solve the second issue by e.g. disabling the "Home" button, changing the account in the explorer or removing a no longer existing old account?

Updated Info / what i use:

  1. Don't use mapped Drives oder External Folders in Quick-Access. Keep all pinned-directories pointing to local files / folders. Instead, save them as files / links:

Image

  1. Disable OneDrive.exe in StartUp-Apps. If this still does not help, completely disable or remove onedrive: https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/office/turn-off-disable-or-uninstall-onedrive-f32a17ce-3336-40fe-9c38-6efb09f944b0 
  2. 'Home' as startup-folder seems to also be slow, change it: https://www.digitalcitizen.life/how-set-start-location-file-explorer-windows-10/
    Image

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  1. Anonymous
    2024-07-03T08:26:32+00:00

    I tried this ('this PC' and privacy changes) but it made no difference at all explorer was taking between 15-22 seconds every time i opened it (very frustrating) I've regularly had issues with slow explorer but not normally quite this bad.

    I read some other threads and comments saying that saved network drives can cause this issue, so i checked for those but didn't have any ('net use' to check and 'net use * /d' to remove them if there are any),

    Also that OneDrive can be the culprit too but that didn't see to be the problem (i redirect several folders to OneDrive).

    Then I noticed that my Google Drive connection wasn't working (the G:, that's not shown by net use, wasn't connected) so after force stopping google drive, and restarting it everything was back to normal. Explorer opened immediately.

    I dont have any files or folders redirected to Google drive (ie desktop documents or pictures etc) but it is pinned for Quick Access it seems that any sort of network drive issue might cause Explorer to have this problem, so it's worth carefully checking all of these if you have a similar problem.

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  2. Anonymous
    2023-11-29T15:23:22+00:00

    It's laughable that the one job Windows is supposed to do is display files in folders, and it can't even seem to do that reliably any more.

    Windows has existed since the mid-late 80's but with each passing version the developers seem to forget what it is. It's supposed to operate my system, not kill it with cancer.

    Imagine right-clicking on a file expecting the expansive menu full of all the options you're used to (and are actually looking for), but instead getting a Fisher Price My-First-Operating-System list of basic interactions for basic humans.

    Ugh. It seems there's only 1 logical answer to this question and that is choose a different OS.

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  3. Anonymous
    2023-01-06T06:17:13+00:00

    This one works for me. Appreciate it.

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  4. Anonymous
    2022-12-25T01:24:16+00:00

    I also experienced Lags with the Explorer:

    1. On Windows 10, i could solve them by removing external file-drives (SMB) from Quick-Access. I created a folder with Links to the drives instead and explorer was fast again. Probably the explorer tried to connect to these drives and for some reason failed, even though the connection was up and working.

    Thank you SO much, Sam! Explorer would open quickly for me, but whenever I navigated to my Documents, Downloads, One Drive, or other folders, there would be a very long delay in recent weeks. It was driving me nuts. Turns out, I had two inaccessible shared folders on another computer (the computer has been turned off) in my Quick Access list. As soon as I removed those links from Quick Access, the problem was gone. YOU ROCK!

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