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on a new computer i have again troubles with the explorer, this time i think it is due to a wrong/old account which is no longer active: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
    2024-03-12T18:51:40+00:00

    Personally, it's slow because it seems to index every time I open it. It wait to connect and index a distant server (a folder on my mac laptop) to start showing my stuff. Without this distant folder, it would be ok I guess. I think they made effort to speed it up in the past year (?!?)

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  2. Anonymous
    2024-03-06T17:19:00+00:00

    You are absolutely right! I the PowerToys Release v0.79.0, which installed a couple days ago, has eliminated my remaining issues! Simply refreshing Release v0.78.0 was a partial fix that had slowed memory-gobbling from being so fast. Thank goodness! PowerToys are worth their weight in M&Ms! It was not until I examined my update logs that I realized that a PowerToys update quickly followed the release of Windows 11 23H2, which is when I noticed my Windows Explorer memory-gobbling began. So, PowerToys was really to blame. Having said that, my hat is off to all the user-developers who have created all the power toys, and some unforeseen goofs should always be expected (like fixing one thing only for that fix to break another thing -- Visual Studio has suffered its fair share of those). I once worked for an Industry Standard CAD/CAM corporation where we would beat our code to death before authorizing a release after not being able to find one single bug... until our shipping department and on-line downloads started shipment! We could find "show-stopper" major bugs ONLY THEN, probably because the pressure to find bugs was finally off and our brains had returned to sanity, due to at last getting some real sleep after a series of mad-dash 24- and 48-hour crunch-time pre-release sessions.

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  3. Anonymous
    2024-03-06T16:41:03+00:00

    In case anyone encounters this issue, I simply updated PowerToys, and the explorer is working as expected.

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  4. Anonymous
    2024-02-22T20:55:28+00:00

    Strange one but I stopped OneDrive running in task manager then my file explorer was running like new.

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