Windows 11 file explorer is slow, lagging, hangs!

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.

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

Here I am, replying to my own post.

I think I may have solved my whole problem. After disabling all indexing, app spying and all the other brain-dead AI **** vendors try auto-installing without my consent, and being totally frustrated that File Explorer would eat up all free memory in less than an hour if I used it with an external storage drive, I finally took a look at Microsoft Power-Toys, which I had, and remembered that it had added a number of VERY CONVENIENT File Explorer Ad-Ons. I went to Power Toys Settings, and under File Explorer Ad-Ons I turned all its options off. I then ran Explorer on my external drives and found that everything was now running OK. I re-enabled an option at a time, tested Explorer in turn after enabling each, until I soon had all Power-Toy File Explorer options back on (thankfully, because these Ad-Ons are wonderful), and File Explorer was STILL working OK. Apparently, when Power Toys recently updated its File Explorer Ad-Ons, something happened to instigate massive memory consumption, but resetting these options by toggling them off and then back on had fixed the issue.

Because Power Toys are popular, I wonder who else here might be able to fix their own issues by doing the same thing I just did?

Wish that was my problem. I uninstalled OneDrive as soon as it was made available. My issue is due to external drives (via USB 3.0 ports). Using them causes background Windows Explorer processes to increase memory use to increase as much as 1.2MB per second, until all apps are forces to use the Page File as if system memory. Turning Indexing of the drives off really helps, but just delays the inevitable, where it will eventually use up to 95% of memory until the system is so slow I think I'm running my old 1.77KHz TRS-80 Model I. Restarting the process in Task Manager is a temporary fix. It gets worse after a drive goes to sleep. It seems Windows is trying to do something on the drive but is incapable of detecting that the drive is sleeping, so it tries even harder and ends up eating memory faster. But even if we look for an alternative to File Explorer. the background Windows Explorer app must still run, being essential for Windows to even function, so the core problem would persist. Does anyone remember the days when Microsoft would address and fix such issues within days or even hours? Not to knock outsourcing most support to China and India, but overall support has gone down the toilet. Using other operating systems, the story is little different. By rights, this explorer slow-down issue should be a showstopper, but is being treated as if it is just another day at their corporate office.